The Chairman said that SACRE had three objectives and it was important that members tried to understand what was going on in schools so that high quality RE teaching could continue to be delivered. A network for primary school teachers was up and running and a secondary school network had also been launched.

Anne Andrews said that the syllabus review needed to be considered. She agreed with the Chairman that it was important to find out what was going on in schools. Anne Andrews was surprised when she first joined SACRE that there was no system in place to easily monitor teaching. She suggested that it would be useful for a member of SACRE who was not involved in schools already to come to a network meeting to get a sense of what was going on.

Karen Butler suggested to Anne Andrews that it could be worth raising as part of her new role on the NASACRE executive committee. It was important not to judge teaching and that it was all about describing rather than evaluating. SACREs were required to monitor teaching and it was one of its key functions. Karen Butler was interested in hearing the views of teachers on how SACRE could improve its monitoring.

Sarah Bradley asked why judgement was being avoided. Teachers received limited feedback on their teaching, so useful feedback from SACRE observations could prove to be beneficial.

Clare Roberts agreed and suggested that monitoring could work in a similar way to how it was used by school governors.

Barbara Meaney said that her school had struggled with moderation of work to ensure that it truly reflected ability. Moderation meetings could help to support teaching.

Karen Butler said that Anne Andrews could pick that up as part of the secondary teachers network. SACRE members could sit in and observe moderation sessions which would provide good evidence of the quality of work being produced.

Anne Andrews said that across the diocese six RE network meetings had been planned, one for each term and 13 different schools would be involved. Teachers would be able to go to their nearest ‘hub’ to undertake the work monitoring which had been suggested by Barbara Meaney. The main challenge was capacity and finding SACRE members with time to go into schools to observe lessons.

The Chairman said finding ways to be more systematic and developing the primary and secondary networks further should be viewed as the direction of travel for SACRE. He suggested that along with the Vice Chairman and Anne Andrews, they would create a document setting out what SACRE was hoping to achieve over the coming year. The Chairman invited anyone else who would be interested in taking part to help with the document.

Karen Butler said that it was important to include the foundations for the review of the syllabus.

The Chairman said that the budget should also be considered. A case could be made to RBWM to increase the amount of money available for SACRE to use, to match its ambitions.

Councillor Stimson left the meeting.

Barbara Meaney expressed an interest in being involved in the SACRE action plan for the forthcoming year.

Anne Andrews said that she would be meeting with the other advisors on the Hub in July to work on a timeline for things like the syllabus review.

ACTION – The Chairman, Karen Butler, Anne Andrews and Barbara Meaney to work on a document setting out what SACRE aimed to achieve over the next year. The Chairman to discuss budget proposals with Clive Haines.