Agenda and minutes

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Media

Items
No. Item

1.

Annual General Meeting: Election of Chair and Deputy Chair

Minutes:

Peter Martin was proposed and seconded to be elected as Chair and County Councillor Yousuf Motala was proposed and seconded to be elected as Vice Chair.

2.

Apologies

Minutes:

Apologies were received from County Councillor Azhar Ali OBE, Mrs Tibret Safraz, Sally Elton-Chalcraft and Mr Francis Williams.

3.

Minutes of the last meeting held on 5 October 2020 pdf icon PDF 308 KB

Minutes:

The minutes of the last meeting held on 5 October 2020 were agreed as a true and accurate record.

 

4.

Draft Annual Report (To follow)

Minutes:

The Draft Annual Report had been circulated prior to the meeting. SACRE members were asked if they thought anything had been omitted or if there were any errors in the report.

 

It was felt that instead of stating the role of SACRE was to provide advice on all aspects of Religious Education in Lancashire schools, it should read Lancashire maintained schools.

 

The SACRE thanked Mrs Alison Lloyd, School Advisor, for the quality of the report she had produced.

 

It was approved by the SACRE that the report could now be forwarded to the DfE and the NASACRE.

 

5.

Agreed Syllabus Conference

Minutes:

An email had been sent out to the four members who had volunteered to be part of the Agreed Syllabus Conference and the 16 December 2020 had been agreed as the first meeting date.

 

The four volunteers were Peter Martin, County Councillor Anne Cheetham, Helen Sage and Harsha Shukla.

 

There was a request for all three representative groups, excluding county councillors, to take a vote to ask the local authority to agree to an Agreed Syllabus Conference taking place, so as to review the syllabus for the next 5 year period. This was agreed.

 

The SACRE was informed that a report would go to Cabinet on 3 December 2020 requesting the Agreed Syllabus Conference.

 

After the first meeting the group would establish how many more meetings of the conference were required to get this piece of work done. The deadline for the Agreed Syllabus was September 2021. A draft version of the syllabus would come back to SACRE for comments and the final version would then go back to Cabinet.

 

6.

Feedback from Chair - NASACRE Conference

Minutes:

The Chair informed members that he had attended the NASACRE conference online. This was an Extraordinary meeting of NASACRE as the original planned conference had been cancelled due to the pandemic.

 

NASACRE was an important body which had a national voice. Its two main champions had worked in the sociology of religion and the study of the effect of religious observance over recent years. They were Professor Linda Woodhead from Lancaster University and the Rt Hon. Charles Clarke.

 

The NASACRE had an acting Chair at the moment, Linda Rudge, who had been a teacher of RE and a teacher trainer of RE at university level. She spoke about her hopes for the future of RE.

 

The conference also discussed a lot of procedural matters around the formation of the executive committee for NASACRE.

 

The main part of the conference was two presentations in relation to the Westhill NASACRE awards. The Westhill Awards donated sums up to £4,000 for the promotion of RE within a given local authority. During the last year the two awards were made to Cumbria SACRE and to Newham SACRE.

 

The Newham presentation was about how they were promoting the visiting of religious locations and places of worship within and outside of their local authority area. This was akin to the work done over the last few years by the Faith Centre in Burnley and Building Bridges Burnley. Newham was a multi-cultural local authority.

 

The award to Cumbria was to a local authority which was much more mono-cultural. Their work had been more classroom based. There would be lessons to be learned for Lancashire SACRE when NASACRE published its report on its website.

 

7.

Feedback relating to School Visit Policy

Minutes:

Dr Malcolm Craig and John Wilson were thanked for all the work they had done in developing the School Visit Policy.

 

It was noted that they had drawn heavily on the pro forma of the Enfield School Visits Policy and refined it. A few extras on protection and child safeguarding had been added. The draft policy was changed slightly as the emphasis of the Enfield policy was on religious education and not so much on collective worship or on school ethos and values. The policy had also been amended to  reflect visits to primary schools.

 

It was suggested that it might be useful for members of SACRE when visiting schools to wear badges and whether or not they would need DBS clearance. It was clarified that if members were supervised throughout the whole visit then they would not require a DBS but if they were going to talk to pupils separately then a DBS would be required. It was felt that if a DBS was required then the visits would be more complicated. It was noted that with previous school visits SACRE members were accompanied at all times.

 

It was suggested that the draft School Visits Policy be circulated to SACRE members for comments and then it could be finalised at the next meeting.

 

8.

Faith Engagement Consultation pdf icon PDF 7 KB

Minutes:

It was noted that the Government had appointed a Faith Engagement Advisor, who had launched an open consultation to collect views and comments from various groups that would underpin a Faith Engagement Review. There was an online form for these groups to complete. The groups the advisor was interested in hearing from were:

 

·  Members of the public who identified as having a religion, or people who had a faith.

·  Faith and religious leaders (voluntary or professional) in places of worship or faith-based organisations and charities.

·  Public servants such as civil servants, teachers, the police and healthcare workers.

·  Anyone who was or had been engaged with the British Military in any capacity.

·  Anyone who was or had been engaged in the Criminal Justice system in any capacity.

 

There were four main sections to the consultation.

 

·  Are faith groups and places of worship forces for good in society.

·  The extent to which Government and its agencies had sufficient faith literacy.

·  Areas where harm might be caused through religious or faith based practices.

·  A set of recommendations for the Government to consider regarding these.

 

SACRE members would be provided with the link to complete the questionnaire. The consultation closed on 11 December 2020.

 

9.

Collective Worship Review

Minutes:

Members were informed of the SACRE Development Plan which was a two year plan and needed to be reviewed at the end of this academic year.

 

One thing not touched upon in the plan was to look at collective worship materials.

 

A good starting point for review would be to evaluate what was on the Lancashire SACRE website. Volunteers were asked for to look at what was on the website to do with Collective Worship and also to look at what other SACREs were doing so as to refine the Collective Worship materials.

 

County Councillor Anne Cheetham, Helen Sage, Kathleen Cooper and Ben McMullen volunteered to look at the Collective Worship materials on the Lancashire SACRE website.

 

10.

Proposed Dates of Meetings for 2021 pdf icon PDF 83 KB

Minutes:

The proposed dates for the Lancashire SACRE and QSS meetings for 2021 were as follows:

 

SACRE

 

Monday 1 February 2021 10.00am

Monday 26 April 2021 10.00am

Monday 5 July 2021 10.00am

Monday 27 September 2021 10.00am

Monday 29 November 2021 10.00am

 

QSS

Wednesday 17 March 2021 10.00am

Wednesday 9 June 2021 10.00am

Wednesday 8 September 2021 10.00am

Wednesday 1 November 2021 10.00am

 

It was important for SACRE members to note these dates and check they did not conflict with any religious festivals or other reasons. The meetings would be online for the foreseeable future.

 

11.

Lancashire Youth Voice

Minutes:

There was nothing to feedback on Lancashire Youth Voice but it was felt that it was important to keep it on the agenda.

 

The question of how the Lancashire Youth Voice could fit into the review of the Agreed Syllabus was raised and also how it could fit into the Collective Worship advice and materials.

 

12.

Correspondence

Minutes:

There was no correspondence.

13.

Members' News

Minutes:

Ishwer Tailor explained that under the current pandemic situation his temple was allowing people in for private prayers only. The isolation of the temple's members was becoming a concern. The needs of the community were being dealt with through Zoom meetings. A number of festivals had been celebrated through Zoom and there had been good feedback about this.

 

Dr Malcolm Craig explained that despite the constraints of the pandemic there still managed to be a successful Interfaith Week. It was also noted that World Interfaith Harmony Week would commence on the first week of February 2021.

 

It was pointed out that the Interfaith Network had run a 'Buddy System' across the country.

 

A lot of the faith communities had come together during the pandemic to support the vulnerable people.

 

14.

Observers' Contributions

Minutes:

There were no Observers' Contributions.

15.

Date of Next Meeting

The proposed next meeting of the SACRE is Monday 1 February 2021 at 10.00am.

Minutes:

The next meeting of the SACRE would be held at 10:00am on Monday 1 February 2021.