Minutes:
The Chair indicated that there was nothing of huge national significance happening in the world of Religious Education. He then advised Members on a number of upcoming meetings and events such as the NASACRE AGM and the AREIAC conference.
K Passmore advised Members that she was also a member of AREIAC, and an analysis had recently been undertaken on RE reports in relation to Ofsted inspections. She advised members that she was happy to feedback to members on the AREIAC conference at the next SACRE meeting.
The Chair advised Members that there was a RE exchange 2020 being organised in Birmingham for teachers of RE.
There were also some opportunities for teacher training provided by the Jewish museum in London.
NATRE had recently held their annual RE conference and are also working on a programme about better RE in your primary school that had received funding.
He had also received correspondence from NATRE on the support they offered to SACRE’s, details of which he had provided to the Education Durham Support and Provision Lead.
The Chair then referred to the results of the general election that compounded where SACRE stood for the next 5 years. He saw a situation in the future with increased academisation. Already there are a number of Roman Catholic (RC) schools in the process of converting to multi academy trusts in the region, Durham RC schools would be part of two different trusts.
He continued that until this point a low number of primary schools had converted to academies and this was something SACRE need to be mindful of as education becomes more disjointed with the systems available to schools and how do they ensure that academies continue to buy into the agreed syllabus.
The Education Durham Support and Provision Lead confirmed that there was also no guarantee that these schools would buy into service level agreements with the authority so there could be less influence with these schools.
The Chair indicated that the test would be the launch of the agreed syllabus which was well attended at the last launch 5 years ago.
The Chair suggested a small planning team to reflect on issues for SACRE and work on short and long-term strategies for SACRE and sought expressions of interest.
The Chair advised Members that he proposed to hold the planning meetings approximately 4 weeks before SACRE meetings. J Bainbridge, L Burton, W Gray K Passmore and S Walker agreed to be part of the planning team.
J Bainbridge referred to rural primary schools that were coming together and she knew of three that were under the one headteacher and it would be interesting to see if all schools were represented at the launch of the agreed syllabus.