Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from County Councillor Stewart Jones, Carolyn Reade, Robert Ash, Peter Lumsden, Ishwer Tailor, Kelsang Pagba, Mufti Javid Pathan and Mrs Tibret Safraz.

Members were informed that Carolyn Reade had resigned from the Lancashire SACRE.

The minutes of the last meeting held on 26 April 2021 were agreed as a true and accurate record.

SACRE members had received a final copy of the Development Plan with their agenda papers.

Under Key Priority 1, which explained about the new Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education, training on this had already been arranged for primary schools. The training had been advertised and would take place on the 27 September and 11 October 2021. Joanne Harris would provide training on the Key Priority 3 elements. Dates for the training on this would be advertised shortly.

It was pointed out that the title of Key Priority 5 had been changed to ' Reinforcing the close link between the teaching of Religious Education, promotion of British Values and development of Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Development. This gave an opportunity to unpick spirituality within schools and training would be provided on this online.

At the AGM in November the SACRE would look at what it had achieved in upholding its tasks regarding the Development Plan.

Alison informed members that the syllabus was finished in terms of what was wanted to be in it and was now with the Creative Partnership Team.

Regarding the Concept Maps, these were vitally important for RE teachers to understand what each unit meant. The Hindu Dharma concept map showed the three concepts that underpinned the syllabus. Each arrow down in this concept map showed a year group. Dharma was picked up in lower Key Stage 2 which was Years 3 and 4. At upper Key Stage 2 all three concepts, Brahman, Dharma and samsara were embedded as part of the curriculum. This gave teachers the concept that underpinned each unit.

The Ofsted Research Paper talked about 'Pillars of Progression'.  These 'Pillars of Progression' had now been progressed to the end of Year 9.

It was pointed out that the rest of the syllabus's content had really not changed much. Adjustments to the syllabus were relatively minor.

The Lancashire Agreed Syllabus would be presented to Cabinet in early September for approval. Training on the syllabus would be provided on 27 September and 11 October 2021. Gratitude was given to Alison Lloyd and Joanne Harris for all the hard work they had put into the Lancashire Agreed Syllabus.

The Schools Visit Protocol document was a meaningful and well packaged document. It set out the purpose of the visit, preparing for the visit, arranging the visit, and possible questions to ask pupils and teachers. It also set out things to look out for and what to do after the visit.

Due to Covid there had been no school visits in the last year but hopefully this would change and schools would be able to open up properly again.

The Chair, Peter Martin, had attended the NASACRE Conference in May. The conference took place virtually via Zoom. 193 people had attended the conference.

The key theme of the conference was 'Authority in RE'. The first address at the conference was by Denise Cush, Professor of Religion and Education at Bath Spa University. In her speech she spoke about power, knowledge, truth and rules. The address was available on the NASACRE website.

The second presentation was from Richard Kueh, who was the main author of the recent Ofsted Research Review, talking about RE and Quality Education and the Education Inspection Framework 2019. He spoke mainly about the Research Review for Religious Education document.

There were some interesting workshops which took place during the conference, one of which was exploring sacred text. It included some useful teaching materials for Key Stages 1, 2 and 3.

Another workshop was about the Pan-Berkshire Film Project. There were six SACREs across Berkshire which worked together on the Westhill award to produce some films on real people and real faiths. This project had not been completed due to Covid.

The final discussion at the conference was about how to define high quality RE.

All in all the NASACRE Conference had proved to be very useful.

Helen Sage had provided a series of summary points from the Ofsted Research paper which had been circulated to members with the agenda. Helen stated that she was indebted to Olivia Seymour from the Diocese of York for putting the points together.

Members were urged to view the link to the recording of the NASACRE Conference where the author of the Ofsted Research Review document had addressed the conference on it.

The Ofsted Research Review was a large and academic document and the Chair stated that to have it its key points summarised was much more useful. Alison Lloyd had used some of the appropriate vocabulary from the review to make adjustments to the Lancashire Agreed Syllabus.

The Research Review was about taking the same rigorous approach to RE and raise its profile, as was done with other subjects.

The summary of the Research Review would help teachers deal with inspections in schools and would be helpful as a training tool.

Sajda Majeed MBE, explained that Building Bridges Burnley had 38 schools from 2019/ 20 that they were still working on. 6 extra schools had signed up for the academic year 2020/21.

Due to the pandemic there had been Zoom sessions held with schools since September 2020 but there was still an offer to visit schools physically.

Building Bridges Burnley were now supporting some additional work that LCC was doing. This was due to staffing issues at the county council. LCC was offering a programme called the 'ALL Together Now Multicultural Days Programme'. Building Bridges Burnley would approach schools and let them know they were offering coordination and multicultural days. This would enable schools and children to explore their own and other identities as well as British values and meeting the public sector equality duty.

There was nothing to report but there was a request for Lancashire Youth Voice to be at item for the QSS to discuss its progression.

There was no correspondence.

The Chair apologised to Ishwer Tailor for the non-attendance of any SACRE members at an event at the Gujarat Hindu Centre. The event was for the launch of a booklet on guidance for children visiting the centre.

Members were informed of that in a Preston school the Quran had been desecrated by some pupils. Khalid Ibrahim had been in conversation with the head of the school and good, constructive dialogue had taken place, and meaningful lessons would be learnt from his situation. SACRE might consider contacting the headteacher to see what had gone wrong and what had been learnt. Helen Sage explained that her diocese had been working with a group called 'Solutions not Sides' over issues like this.

Members were informed that the 'Knife Angel' would be coming to Lancashire. It would be at Blackburn Cathedral for the whole of November 2021, where multiple agencies would join together to raise the awareness of knife crime and explain the role that faith communities had.

Regarding visits to schools, if from the non-religious perspective additional support was required, there were accredited speakers available who had visited schools. Physical visits were thought to be much better and more interactive than Zoom visits.

The next scheduled meeting of the SACRE will be held at 10.00am on Monday 27 September 2021.

Future dates of meetings:

SACRE

Monday 29 November 2021 10.00am

QSS:

Wednesday 8 September 2021 10.00am

Wednesday 3 November 2021 10.00am

The next scheduled meeting of the Lancashire SACRE would be held at 10:00am on Monday 27 September 2021.

The Lancashire SACRE AGM would be held at 10:00am on Monday 29 November 2021.

The next SACRE QSS meetings would be held at 10:00am on Wednesday 8 September 2021 and at 10:00am on Wednesday 3 November 2021.