Agenda and minutes

Venue: Council Chamber - Town Hall - Maidenhead

Contact: Nabihah Hassan-Farooq  01628796345

Items
No. Item

117.

Welcome

Minutes:

The Chair began the meeting by welcoming all Members.

118.

Apologies For Absence

Minutes:

Apologies of absence were received from Reverend Sally Lynch, Reverend Rosie Webb, Chris Sayers, Deborah Firth, Ravinder Singh Zandu and Ceri Neil.

119.

Minutes Of Meeting on the 28th November 2017 pdf icon PDF 63 KB

Minutes:

That the minutes of the previous meeting were approved as an accurate record.

120.

Matters Arising

Minutes:

No further items were raised by Members.

121.

Agreed Syllabus Review pdf icon PDF 177 KB

·         Syllabus Forward

·         Syllabus Publication

·         Revised Syllabus Launch Events

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Anne Andrews gave a presentation to the SACRE which set out changes to the syllabus. The Pan-Berkshire Agreed Syllabus Review included the need to align with most recent national early years framework (2017) for early years along with the added expectation that schools were ensuring their EYFS RE was aligned with the most recent EYFS national framework.

 

The presentation highlighted the following points:

 

By the end of KS2, Christianity would be taught in every year group plus Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism. Other religions could be included but were not compulsory. There was a new requirement to include a secular worldview at KS3.

Members also discussed ways in which the SACRE would make decisions on how to disseminate the revised syllabus to the schools in their locality. Members also discussed whether a data set had been used for the recommendation for inclusion of other faiths into earlier Key Stages, and it was confirmed that VA Schools as Church schools had freedom and did not need to follow the agreed syllabus. Members discussed the inclusion of Islam at KS1 and agreed that the inclusion of this religion was a positive move and reactive to the recent PREVENT guidance. It was clarified that Islam would be taught once in KS1 and once in KS3 and that Christianity would continue being taught in every year group. Councillor Airey asked for consistency around ‘secular world views’ within the syllabus as there had been some mention of ‘humanism,’ which could lead to a heavily weighted preference to teach humanism. Members also discussed whether the inclusion of chronology of religions should be included and it was clarified that children in classrooms do already receive support in understanding the chronology of religions.

 

ACTION- That the term ‘humanism’ be removed and replaced with a ‘secular world view’ or ‘non-religious worldview’ to allow freedom of choice for the ‘secular world/non-religious worldview’ to be taught and to help give clearer guidance for all teachers.

 

That an outline of all Key stages (1-3) questions overview was discussed, which included current key questions which would be amended to add clarity in light of consultation and feedback. The Chair suggested that any suggestions for the questions should be sent through to Anne Andrews by the 23rd March 2018.  It was also agreed that at KS4, that all students would have a statutory entitlement to RE at KS4 and that they should all have access to an accredited course e.g. GCSE and that this expectation should be strengthened and that the expectation was that children at KS4 should have 40 hours of RE. Members discussed the requirement of GCSE RE examinations and that they included two religious worldview examinations and that some syllabus’ included philosophy and ethics.

 

ACTION- That Anne Andrew feeds back to Jan Lever regarding the previous requirement for KS4 and whether the original wording should be retained.

 

The SACRE discussed attainment targets 1 and 2, which included “learning about” and “learning from” religions and worldviews. Members disagreed with the “learning  ...  view the full minutes text for item 121.

122.

Pan-Berkshire Hub Agreed Syllabus Review

Minutes:

Training Session to be held on;

 

·         The Hub Session at Shute End,Wokingham on the 24th April 2018.

123.

AOB

Minutes:

No further matters were raised.

124.

Dates of Future Meetings