Agenda and minutes

Members will be given a tour of the Chruch, at 5.30 pm, by the Vicar.

It was noted that the current Chairman and Vice-Chairman would be standing down at the next meeting of SACRE. Members were asked to consider who wished to stand for these positions.

Not before 6 pm.

Apologies were received from Councillors Wendy Brice-Thompson, Joshua Chapman and Dilip Patel. Apologies were also received from Jenny Fox, Salvation Army and Dawn Ladbrook, Evangelical Free Church.

To agree as a correct record the minutes of the meeting held on 23 Mrach 2017 (attached) and to authorise the Chairman to sign them and to address any matters arising therefrom.

The minutes of the meeting of SACRE held on 23 March 2017 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

It was noted that the revised terms of reference had been set to the Council for consideration.

Updarte from professional advisor attached.

A planning network meeting had been held this term which included discussion of an activity for infant school children to tell a religious story. Form teachers had brought along school books to show best practice and the meeting had been held in a supportive atmosphere.

The Quality Mark cost £395 for larger schools to apply for and this was considered to be too expensive for many schools, unless a reduced rate could be obtained. The reduced rate as however only available smaller schools and those with lower OFSTED ratings for RE. The Quality Mark required a half day assessment and the completing of questionnaires with children covering what they had studied in RE etc. the only Havering school currently holding a Quality Mark for RE was Hall Mead and it was noted that a school in Redbridge had obtained a Quality Mark using the same syllabus as that used in Havering.   

A primary teacher had given good feedback following their recent attendance at a free humanism conference and it was noted that the British Humanist Association was now called Humanism UK.

Update from professional advisor attached.

The Commission on Religious Education was continuing to gather evidence and representatives had spoken at RE teacher conferences etc. Commissioners were also happy to be invited to visit schools in the borough.

A recent survey on racial and religious discrimination had shown that discrimination had increased. Work did take place with children in Re lessons that should mitigate against this. It was agreed that a link to the survey would be forwarded via the portal to secondary schools. The full outcomes of the survey could be brought to a future meeting of SACRE.

RE had not been included in the English Baccalaureate syllabus. A response from the Government on this issue had just been released and said that RE must be taught to all pupils to the end of Key Stage 5. It had also been recommended that schools should offer a GCSE in RE. There were however 30,000 fewer entrants for GCSE religious studies nationally this year.  

To approve the SACRE annual report (attached) and agree that it should be sent to the National Association of SACREs.

The annual report of SACRE was agreed and it was also agreed that the clerk should forward the annual report to the National Association of SACREs.

Results summary attached.

The group considered data on the number of RE teaching hours offered by schools in each group although it was noted that this data had to be input correctly.

Positive schools in this regard were Coopers and Frances Bardsley whilst questions could be asked of schools including Emerson Park, Redden Court, Royal Liberty and Albany. Specific issues noted from the data included that Drapers appeared to stop teaching the subject at year 9 and that Royal Liberty had a lot of entrants at GCSE but poor results.

It was agreed that SACRE should write to those schools with a full cohort and good results for RE congratulating them on this.

SACRE will be monitoring and reviewing RE and collective worship more closely next year, sticking to the three year cycle. Methods of formal and informal monitoring are both important and need to be discussed at this meeting so that SACRE can make a prompt start with its monitoring responsibilities next year.   

The SACRE professional advisors had met with representatives of the Council’s Children’s Services directorate in summer 2016. For two years out of every three, SACRE used the monitoring work carried out by Havering’s School Improvement Service. SACRE could do its own monitoring in the

third year of the cycle.

Examples of monitoring questionnaires were circulated and it was noted that the Newham questionnaire included methods for a school to judge how effective its RE teaching was.

Monitoring could be undertaken informally by SACRE members visiting schools and information available on school websites could also be monitored, perhaps at a future meeting of SACRE. A monitoring form for Havering could be developed by SACRE, along similar lines and a covering letter from Children’s Services could perhaps also be obtained. It was suggested that some questions in the circulated forms could be combined and that schools could be asked about external groups visiting them. Survey Monkey or similar websites could be used to host the questionnaire for Havering.

It was agreed that the professional advisers would distribute a pilot form for comment and this would be reported back at the spring term meeting of SACRE.

It was noted that there were training resources on the NASACRE website and that this could be used to update the Havering SACRE handbook.

It was suggested that a Jewish-Christian joint event could be arranged in the form on an exhibition on different religions. This could be expanded to looking at different festivals for a number of religions and beliefs, perhaps in summer 2018. The professional advisors would investigate applying for reward funding for the project. The exhibition could be booked to be shown in different schools and also displayed in e.g. the Queen’s Theatre foyer.

Thanks were recorded to Father Mike Power and Stephanie Ellner for their hospitality in allowing SACRE to use the church for the meeting.  

To set a date for the Autumn Term meeting and, if possible, set a date for future meetings.

The next meeting would be on Thursday 19 October at 6 pm preferably at a venue with a computer suite to facilitate monitoring of RE work shown on school websites.

Future SACRE meeting dates would be:

Tuesday 13 March 2018, 6 pm

Thursday 12 July 2018, 6 pm