Chairman to Welcome everyone to the meeting.

The Vice Chairman Chaired the Meeting in the absence of the Chairman.

The Vice Chairman welcomed everyone to the meeting, especially Saghir Ahmad for re-joining the SACRE representing Islam. It was very disappointing the not many Members were present at the Meeting.

To note Apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Airey, Kellaway and Majeed, Ravinder Singh Zandu, Liz Jenkins, Gary Homewood, Deborah Firth and Joan Hicks.

To agree the minutes of the last meeting.

ACTION: Clerk to make amendments discussed at meeting and to send to Members again for clearance.

The Vice Chairman went through the Matters Arising as follows:

·         Extremely good newsletter produced by Anne Andrews.

·         Discussions about the conference were still ongoing but the SACREs suggestion of using the remaining annual funds to pay for teachers to attend was definitely good use of the funds.

·         Budget information for 2016/17 still not available.

ACTION: Clive to send budget information to Members as soon as it is available.

To receive an update on membership from clerk, Shilpa Manek.

Saghir Ahmed joins SACRE to represent Islam.

Chairman to lead discussion on SACRE Dashboard.

Since no local authority representative was in attendance at the meeting, there was no information to discuss at meeting.

Chairman to lead discussion on RE teacher training.

Anne Andrews gave an update on the training carried out. A training session was carried out at a school in Sunningdale in order to encourage Ascot schools to attend, however, they didn’t attend.

The session was very useful and feedback was very positive. Some core content was identified and teachers began to think about the importance of learning objectives.

Schools have still not decided what religions they are going to be teaching yet.

Anne Andrews doing more support work at Trevelyan Middle School.

Anne Andrews has only received two responses regarding GCSEs and what schools will be teaching. Responses only received from Windsor Girls and Newlands. Anne Andrews was concerned about providing training if she has no idea what schools are teaching.

ACTION: Louisa Ceska to contact Secondary school heads to respond. Anne Andrews to prepare draft email for Louisa Ceska to send to all secondary school heads.

Other points raised included that the new syllabus was due to come into schools from September 2016 and the mosque was happy to offer a Q and A session to secondary schools.

Louisa Ceska informed Members that examination boards had not got their specifications ready yet as they had not been accredited yet. Everyone still waiting for government decisions.

To receive an update from Anne Andrews and Karen Butler.

It was decided to accept the proposal to join the Pan-Berkshire Hub initiative?  In that context, the Chairman was to write a letter positively responding to its coordinator, Jan Lever.

ACTION: Chairman to write a letter positively responding to its coordinator, Jan Lever.

To receive an update from Anne Andrews.

Members discussed the draft version which was based on the previous development plan from 2010. Members discussed that the development plan and toolkit were fundamental to the SACREs work.

ACTION: Chairman to collate Anne Andrews work to date and the conclusion of the self evaluation, together with the teacher survey results, in advance of discussion on a SACRE development plan at the next meeting in June.

Chairman to invite SACRE Members and RBWM Councillors for any updates.

The SACRE discussed and approved an appeal to potential sponsors circulated via WAM Get Involved (via Harjit Hunjan).  Funding is being sought to cover coach transport so that schools are able to arrange trips to local places of worship, where they can be welcomed and helped to learn more about faith and culture.  

SACRE also noted the success of the recent season of inter-faith discussion evenings in Maidenhead, which took place at five different places of worship reflecting the diversity of Maidenhead’s faith communities.

To raise any other business.

The vacancies in the Membership was discussed.

ACTION: Clerk to try and find a Baptist Church representative to join SACRE.

Dates to be noted for future meetings:

·         Monday 6 June 2016

·         Tuesday 8 November 2016

·         Monday 13 March 2017

ACTION: Clerk to rearrange dates, meetings not to be on Mondays and aligning them with other councils.