Agenda item

RE Quality Mark

Formerly, Regents Park school had applied for and won the Gold award. Other Southampton schools had used the App tools but not applied for the award.  More recently however, Banister primary school had undertaken the assessment process and had achieved the Gold Quality Mark. Bannister primary school teachers KV and EB made a presentation to SACRE to raise the following points:

·  The RE Quality Mark could be used to; benchmark RE, receive external validation, or to strengthen the RE subject area.

·  Balancing religious and non-religious perspectives in class time, gave all views equal opportunity to be heard, and so met one of SACRE’s targets.

·  At Banister RE was used a way of understanding the world and the people around it. The school had worked hard using that as the driver for its ethos and culture.

·  Banister was fortunate to be a diverse school. Children use fifty-six languages (the highest proportion being 46% English), and had a diverse range of experience and religions.

·  A new concept had been introduced called ‘RE in a Minute’, where Year 5 & 6 children were set a question and given time to formulate answers. Children were encouraged to express themselves and explore religious and non-religious ideas and interpretations. This gave the school the confidence to explore the wider concepts of interpretation and to allow the children to guide what they wanted to learn. Children were found to make better connections with other religions after the lesson when given time to process using the ‘Pondering’ concept.

·  There would be an opportunity at a future time for SACRE members to view a video of the children participating, which could not be shared at the public meeting.

AP and EJ extended congratulations to Banister school on its achievement of the RE Quality Mark. It was agreed that AP would write to the school on behalf of SACRE to extend SACRE’s congratulations.

NASACRE Conference

AP reported that the NASACRE conference had been a useful, rich experience with a broad spectrum. It was attended by 100 people, mainly professional advisers and country wide SACRE members, sharing useful practice at a very well-managed online event. 

AP stated that other SACRES had shown interest in Southampton’s Advice document, which might lead to potential additions to the document from other SACRES. AP recommended attendance at future conferences.

World Views Workshop

AP explained that the World Views Issue and the Theos paper (Agenda item 6) were linked and anticipated that more papers would follow, which was welcomed. It had become clear, particularly while working on the Locally Agreed Syllabus Review, that clarity and definition were needed to ascertain a common countrywide understanding.

RE Network Event

AP explained that the Year 8/9 event would take place in the Autumn. As previously, this would be a fact-finding activity for pupils during the morning with cross-school group presentations in the afternoon. It was agreed that AP would confirm the date of the event once it had been scheduled and would add the item to the September SACRE agenda. Further, it was agreed that SACRE members would inform AP if they could take part in and support the event.