Agenda and minutes

Ahmed James, representing Islam, was welcomed as a new member to the Lancashire SACRE.

Apologies were received from County Councillor Peter Steen, Professor Alan Gillies, Lisa Fenton, Dr Malcolm Craig and Keith Pennington.

The minutes of the last meeting held on 1 February 2021 were agreed as a true and accurate record.

The 2018 - 2020 Lancashire SACRE Development Plan had been included in the agenda papers. The plan had been updated and would form the next steps of the 2021-2023 development plan.

It was suggested and agreed that members divide into groups and look at the objectives of the Lancashire SACRE Development Plan. The groups were asked to evaluate Objectives 1, 2 and 3 of the plan, then to evaluate and come up with the next steps for Objectives 4 and 5.

The Objectives were as follows:

·  Objective 1 - Raising standards by improving the quality of teaching, learning and assessment in Religious Education.

·  Objective 2 - Monitoring and evaluating standards and the quality of provision for RE in Lancashire schools.

·  Objective 3 – To improve the provision of Collective Worship.

·  Objective 4 – To ensure that the SACRE was effectively managed and worked in close cooperation with the local authority and other key stakeholders.

·  Objective 5 – To develop the contribution of RE to Community Cohesion.

Points raised from the groups for Objectives 4 and 5 were as follows:

Objective 4

·  It was felt that some SACRE meetings could still be held virtually. This would reduce unnecessary travel and be good management of time for members.

·  A timed agenda was suggested, with indications on the agenda of what decisions needed to be made, would help to manage time for members.

·  There should be an allocated social breakout time on the agenda for members to network with one another.

·  It was important to catch up with the contacts from the different faith representatives to check where they were up to.

·  In terms of the SACRE working positively in partnership with key local and national stakeholders there had to be a faith coordinator in place for this to work well.

·  The lack of Sikhism representation was noted.

·  One action point to be looked at and explored further was the agreed procedures for frequent non-attendance. The attendance process needed to be tightened up.

·  It was felt there needed to be an action plan to have contacts with the academies and have them promote the syllabus. Having  an academy representative on the SACRE was suggested. It was important to check what the progress was with SACRE and its partnership with academies as communication and engagement did not seem to be happening.

·  The 'Youth Voice' was another project to pick up on. One possibility was to look at having the young people attend virtually to ensure representation. Teachers could be invited along to SACRE meetings as part of the 'Youth Voice'.

·  Regarding how local schools could access events and training opportunities hosted by local teacher training organisations, the Covid pandemic had a large impact on this. There was a possibility here for looking at virtual training programmes going forward.

·  A survey was needed to see what groups were missing from the SACRE and what could be done to approach these groups.

·  In terms of teacher training, members enquired if this was a realistic objective for  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

The Agreed Syllabus Conference was a group of SACRE members representing each of the four divisions of the SACRE. They had responsibility for the oversight of the review of the syllabus every five years. A revised syllabus would be in place by September 2021.

Members were informed that the Key Stage 3 materials had yet to be finished. Once these had been completed the syllabus would go to the printers in June.

The Agreed Syllabus Conference would meet again on 11 June 2021.

There had been a good discussion on Collective Worship at the last SACRE QSS meeting in March 2021. All the 'Mirrors and Doors' materials had been looked at. Some errors had been identified as well as things that needed to be updated.

At the March QSS meeting, examples of Collective Worship documents from other authorities were looked at. It was felt that Lancashire's Collective Worship document was sound as it was but members at the meeting identified three areas to add to the document. These were around:

·  The use of invitational language.

·  Developing the role of pupils in planning and monitoring worship.

·  Including examples of Collective Worship from other schools.

Sajda Majeed MBE informed the SACRE that Building Bridges Burnley had 38 schools signed up in 2019/20, 6 more schools had signed up in 2021 making the total number of schools signed up at 44.

Due to the pandemic there had not been many school visits. Building Bridges Burnley had managed 8 school visits via Zoom since September 2020.

Building Bridges Burnley had appointed a new Near Neighbours Coordinator which strengthened the Building Bridges Burnley activity. There would be more interaction between the Near Neighbours Programme and schools.

There was nothing to report.

There was no correspondence.

Ishwer Tailor informed the SACRE that since the lockdown the Gujarat Centre in Preston had allowed worshippers to do their private prayers. Congregations for big meetings were not allowed. Celebrations were held via Zoom. A guidance booklet for children visiting the centre had also been produced. The launch of the booklet would be in June 2021 and SACRE members were invited to attend the launch.

Members were invited to attend the NASACRE Conference on 25 May 2021. The conference would be held virtually.

There were none.

The next scheduled meeting of the SACRE will be held at 10.00am on Monday 5 July 2021.

The next meeting of the SACRE would be held at 10:00am on Monday 5 July 2021.