Minutes:
The Chairman referred to the demonstration by the Pegida UK group held in Newcastle on Saturday 27 February 2015. He attended the demonstration as part of the counter demonstration group that had been set up. He advised members that approximately 3,000 people marched against the demonstration and that there were approximately 500 demonstrators.
SACRE members discussed the demonstration, in particular how it showed communities standing together.
The Chairman indicated that 2014 had been a harsh year for Religious Education but 2015 was looking better with the introduction of the bursary scheme for the recruitment of high-quality RE teachers in 2015/16.
SACRE members discussed the possibility of a Humanist to sit on Durham SACRE. It was agreed that the Chairman invite a member of the Humanist Society to come to a future SACRE meeting to talk to members.
The Chairman referred to a letter he had received from Discovery RE who are a company who sell primary schools an RE scheme of work mapped to the local agreed syllabus. He advised members that they did not have access to Durham’s Agreed Syllabus for copyright reasons.