Minutes:
Vicki Mitchell from Yohden Primary School was in attendance to deliver a presentation on supporting SEND pupils in RE lessons.
The presentation provided details of three children known as Child A, Child B and Child C. The presentation also provided detail of each of the five strands and how this looked in RE lessons as well as key questions, unit overview and how she made it a creative curriculum with a sense of enquiry and provided examples of the work. She concluded the presentation by providing details of what monitoring showed (for copy of presentation, see file of minutes).
Members thanked V Mitchell for her informative presentation.
Members discussed that presentation and asked if the strategies that were in place for the children would continue when they moved year groups. Members were advised that this was the case and the Teaching Assistant would also be moving with the children and the strategies had been put into other areas.
E Downing suggested that the medium-term plan in the Durham Agreed Syllabus next time be very structured and focused on lots of different religious areas and bring in non-religious world views.
V Mitchell indicated that the Durham Agreed Syllabus assumes that you were going to have links with other faiths but this was not always the case and commented that it was difficult to go to places of worship due to tight budgets, so this was not always possible.
The Senior Professional Learning Advisor stated that in terms of moving forward with the Durham Agreed Syllabus they have found that all schools were now using the Durham Agreed Syllabus and teachers she had spoken to were confident in terms of knowledge and understanding. When it came to critical thinking and personal reflection was when some teachers found it difficult to work into lessons. There was pressure on schools to evidence what children were learning and commented that you could evidence knowledge but reflection and critical thinking was hard to evidence. Some additional guidance around this could be in terms of training that would add further value to the Durham Agreed Syllabus.
Councillor Haney indicated that a meeting had been held prior to the SACRE meeting around non-religious and religious world views so they were working on this.
Members discussed how useful the Durham Agreed Syllabus was and its effective implementation and asked that SACRE be included in future launches of the Durham Agreed Syllabus.
The Senior Professional Learning Advisor indicated that she would take this back to the service and find out what was covered in terms of what information went out to schools and ensure that SACRE Members were invited to any launches going forward.
The Chair indicated that the Durham Agreed Syllabus launch moved to virtual due to COVID and was originally planned as a physical launch.
The Senior Professional Learning Advisor asked Members if they would like a regular update around any training on aspects of Religious Education which Members confirmed would be very helpful. She then provided details of some courses that were coming forward.