Agenda and minutes

Attendees

Roman Catholic Church  Ms J Busby

  Mr B McMullen

Free Churches  Mr P Baker

Teacher Associations  Mrs A Robinson (ATL)

  Mrs J Roper (NASUWT)

  Ms J Crabtree (NUT)

Church of England  Mrs M Pate 

Lancashire County Council  CC P Buckley (Chair)

CC S Malik

Representing Hinduism  Mrs H Shukla

  Mr I Tailor

Teachers Union  Ms J Roper (NASUWT)

Representing the LASGB  Mrs Kathleen Cooper

Observers

Representing the Bahá’i Faith  Dr Malcolm Craig

Representing Voice  Mr S Langhorn

Officers

Mrs A Lloyd – Advisor (School Improvement), Lancashire County Council, Children and Young People Directorate

Mrs M Mahmood – Senior Democratic Services Officer, Lancashire County Council, Legal and Democratic Services

Mr F Bailey – Democratic Services Officer, Lancashire County Council, Legal and Democratic Services

Attached.

Apologies were received from Mr F Williams, Mr P Martin, CC A Cheetham, Ms J Clarke, Mr Z Anwar, Dr M Craig, CC Y Motala, Mrs J O'Rourke, Mr C Wills, Ms J Harris, Mrs H Sage, Mr A Anwar, Mr E Guttentag. 

Link to Website:

Lancashire SACRE Website

Attached.

Members assembled together in small groups to consider the actions for the 5 priorities from the Development Plan. The following points were noted:

·  Objective 1.5 – In relation to the cost element involved in obtaining the R.E Quality Mark, it could be noted on the Development Plan that this often depended on the school budget rather than the R.E. standard. Eventually the aim would be to have a Lancashire SACRE Quality Mark.

·  Objective 2.1 – Support for teachers at KS4 was noted as one of the biggest issues facing schools at the moment in light of recent changes to the syllabus. It was recommended that support for this could be added in as a specific action/target.

·  Key Priority 5 - Suggestions included having young people attend to chair meetings, using places of worship as meeting venues and having Islamic representation on the Lancashire SACRE.

Action: It was agreed that the Quality and Sub Standards Group would consider some of the objectives in more detail, as mentioned under Item 16. 

Verbal update.

A brief update on membership was provided, the first full meeting for new members would be on the 25 September 2017. A welcome pack was being prepared for new members and would include the following documents, this would be shared with members at the September meeting:

-  Welcome letter

-  Terms of Reference for the SACRE

-  List of dates of meetings for the next academic year

-  List of members

-  Revised leaflet 'What is Lancashire SACRE'

-  NASACRE induction booklet

Mrs A Lloyd was also preparing a detailed PowerPoint presentation which would help to explain the role of the Lancashire SACRE to new members.

Verbal update.

The NNW Hub met once a term and the meetings were going well. The following was noted at the last meeting:

-  Members would share GCSE and A Level results.

-  A joint conference across the NNW was considered.

-  The Cumbria syllabus was looked at.

-  Consideration was given to requests for withdrawal from parents, a recent spike had been noted due to national events. Nationally, NASACRE were producing a policy around this which was being drafted by Paul Smalley.

-  The next meeting would take place in November. 

Verbal update.

The NASACRE Conference took place in York in May 2017, the theme for the day was Preparing for life in Britain today: the contribution of R.E. Keynote speakers included Dr Joyce Miller and Professor Aaqil Ahmed. The opportunity for networking for attendees was limited and this was fed back to the organisers.

Verbal update

There had been significant changes this year in terms of the monitoring arrangements. KS1 and KS2 had been requested to submit data in relation to age related expectations. Due to changes in assessment at KS3, this year a monitoring reform has been sent to schools instead of a request for attainment data. The monitoring form would concentrate on checking whether secondary schools were meeting their statutory responsibilities in teaching good quality Religious Education.  The pro-forma was available on the portal for schools to fill in electronically. It was noted that for secondary schools the usual return rate was in the region of 70%.

Mr B McMullen shared with members that the changes to GCSE were very significant, training was being offered by the exam boards, but schools needed to decide which board to go with first. Some of the training was very expensive and some schools had agreed to share the training costs. Mrs A Lloyd stated that there would be some specific training available on Islam early in January next year and all secondary schools would be invited.

It was hoped the monitoring form would capture most of the issues and training requirements which would then be used to inform the targets for the Development Plan for next year. The deadline for submission was the 30 September 2017 and an update would be provided to SACRE members at the November 2017 meeting.

It was suggested that a question that could be asked on the form was the size of the R.E. department within a school and whether any changes were planned for the future as many departments were getting smaller. NATRE also captured this data on a national level and in the future it might be useful to compare this data with the information provided from schools. This was also suggested as an item for the Newsletter.

A question was raised about how this information was communicated to head teachers and the consensus amongst members was that communication was key. The Chair CC P Buckley had been in communication with the Chair of Lancashire Governors and much information had been shared and CC S Malik had already made suggestions at Education Scrutiny in regards to having a platform with head teachers. 

Verbal update.

The consultancy post had now been advertised twice and unfortunately nobody had been appointed. In light of this, Management Team had agreed to recruit a band of teachers in Primary and Secondary schools who were experts in their field as currently there was only Ms J Crabtree and Ms J Harris that were relied upon heavily, Ms J Crabtree would also be reducing her hours from September.

The excellent work undertaken for the website and the newsletter had raised the profile and generated much interest and there was a definite need for additional support.

Initially head teachers would be requested to release teachers for 5 days a term, this would include training days for the teachers which teachers could request from the County Council dependant on need. The band of teachers would agree and write training material and then as a group they would quality assure the material. It was hoped that eventually this system would generate income as well.

Verbal update.

The R.E Conference would take place on 16 October 2017, it had been extremely successful last year. The event would take place at Farrington Lodge this year and like last year 10 spaces would be reserved for SACRE members, anyone wishing to attend needed to let Mrs A Lloyd know as soon as possible.

A further two more conferences were planned at secondary level. The first to support teacher's subject knowledge in the teaching of Islam and the second would be a pupil voice conference for Able, Gifted and Talented pupils, both would be led by Lat Blaylock.

Attached.

In December 2016 an application was prepared and submitted to the Accord Inclusivity Award by Mrs A Lloyd, Mr Anwar and Mr P Martin. Following the award process the Accord Coalition produced a report highlighting many of the innovative and excellent practices that had been evident throughout the process.

Mrs A Lloyd had drawn out key information from the report to share with SACRE members in regards to first, second and third place and other commended practices from across the country. Links for further resources were also included. Suffolk SACRE had received a special commendation for developing a Teaching Controversial Issues Toolkit 

It was noted that Lancashire SACRE had been commended for their SACRE membership which reflected the major denominations in non-Christian World Faiths and for the excellent work of the Faith Centre.

A question was asked about how Lancashire promoted assemblies and references were provided to the Ofsted Framework, the Mirrors and Doors resource available on the website and the visits to schools by SACRE members.

Verbal update.

This item was deferred to the next meeting. County Councillor Peter Buckley would be in touch with Mr A Anwar as part of his role as Cabinet Member for Community and Cultural Services included Community Cohesion.

Verbal update.

There was nothing to report.

There was no Members News. It was noted that any news Members had could also be included on the rolling scroll of information on the website. The password for the website was noted as enquiry44. 

There was no further contributions.

None.

Verbal update.

Items for the next QSS agenda had been discussed and included the following:

-  Lancashire SACRE Quality Mark, in light of the discussion on the Quality Mark under Item 3 about Objective 1.5.

-  Collective Worship – looking at the Brent model and providing more practical advice for Head teachers. 

The next scheduled meeting of the SACRE will be held on Monday 25 September 2017 at 10.00am in Cabinet Room D – The Henry Bolingbroke, County Hall, Preston.

The next QSS SACRE meeting will be held on Wednesday 13 September 2017.

The annual meeting of the SACRE will be held on Monday 27 November 2017.

The next meeting of the SACRE will be held on Monday 25 September 2017 at 10.00am in Cabinet Room D, The Henry Bollingbroke Room at County Hall, Preston.