Agenda item

The Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education received a report of the Head of Legal and Democratic Services which provided an explanation of the duty placed upon local authorities under the Education Act 1996, to establish a Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education, including which groups must be appointed a members of the council, and who can be co-opted (for copy see file of Minutes).

The Chair welcome K Clayton, Legal Manager Childrens, Adults & Health who was in attendance to present the report and offer support and advice to SACRE on any proposed changes to the membership.

She explained that the Constitution was last reviewed and amended in 2003. There were currently 5 vacancies in group a) and 3 vacancies in group c). There had also been a request to appoint a humanist representative as a full member in group a), rather than being a co-opted member.

SACRE was therefore invited to provide views to the local authority on the current membership, whilst noting that any decision to change the membership would require an amendment to the SACRE’s Constitution, further requiring Cabinet to approve the proposed amendment.

C Spencer asked whether under group (a) there was a legal definition of which religions could be appointed or was this up to SACRE to determine. In response K Clayton advised that she would need to look at the legislation in more depth to be able to provide an answer to that query. S Walker commented that it would be unwise to seek to define the word religion and noted the requirements of the Equality Act 2010.

W Gray, commented that she felt it important that SACRE had a broad range of representatives, which included and represented all faiths in County Durham. She further asked whether any further clarification could be provided on paragraph 7(i) and (ii). In response K Clayton advised that both of those paragraphs had been lifted directly from the Act and unfortunately there was no further guidance to expand upon that.

K Passmore noted that that the situation had changed around us drastically since the Act was introduced in 1996, SACRE determined the religious education and felt that a lot that was contained in the Act was open to interpretation and how much weight was placed upon various aspects should be done so with the appropriate legal advice.

The Chair also noted that there was little worship undertaken in community-based schools and the Education Act 1996 did not necessarily meet the reality of what was practiced in schools. K Clayton agreed that the legislation was old and didn’t in some circumstances fit the current situation, she further noted that some amendments had been made in Wales to reflect this, however there were no signs at this stage that this would be amended in England.

J Rimmer, commented that ‘advising’ schools was an interesting word as she felt ‘influencing’ was a more appropriate word for the role of SACRE and it’s input into Religious Education, given the changes in the number of maintained schools and the development of academies since the Education Act was passed. She further referred to changes in expansion of academies in the Levelling Up (2022) White Paper and the possible implications of  local authority responsibilities for education in the expected Education white paper government white paper, and furthermore acknowledged that what was happening on the ground was quite different, but how SACRE fulfilled the spirt of the Act was important.

W Gray referred to paragraph 8 of the report and asked whether world views would be considered in the reviewed syllabus. The Chair at this point noted that the current syllabus did introduce world views. He did however feel it was really important to get views from schools first and whether they felt that world views had yet been fully embedded within their schools. K Passmore suggested that it would be helpful to also obtain a national perspective on this issue.

J Rimmer added that this was an ongoing conversation and one which could have continued dialogue within SACRE. A sub-group for example could be helpful as part of a self-review process, alongside curriculum thinking.

Further discussion took place regarding infant education and the differences and difficulties faced in introducing world views at a primary age. As previously discussed, primary representation on SACRE was important and it was noted that this would be picked up in the following agenda item.

The Chair therefore suggested that a working group be established which would look at where schools were at in terms of introducing world views into the classroom and how effectively this was being embedded.

L Burton asked whether it would be possible to seek the input of Catherine Robson, Independent Educational Development Advisor into the working group. In response J Rimmer advised that she would need to seek funding from Education Durham, however in theory yes that would be possible, and agreed to follow this up.

Further discussion took place regarding the budget for SACRE, noting that there were some queries around how funding was allocated to SACRE which required addressing. J Rimmer noted that this had been an ongoing issue and the council had faced severe budget pressures for a number of years, the issues relating to funding for SACRE were not unique, however she was supportive of the request and agreed to seek further information in this regard.

Councillor M Walton agreed to look to obtain further information regarding the budget allocation and report back to the next meeting.

Resolved:

That the Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education

i)        Note the outline of SACRE’s functions

ii)       Note the current membership arrangements

iii)      Including a Standing Item on each agenda on evaluation of impact        of the Agreed Syllabus

iv)      Establish a working group  to consider world views and relevant          advice and guidance to schools