Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence had been received from Mike Gettleson,

Cllr Keith Burrows, Alison Fothergill, Kevin Guest, Angela Lount, Daniel Norris, Jean Nunnery, Jasvir Singh Rayat, Dharmini Shah, Heather Steady and Hilary Stone.

The minutes of meeting held on 9 November 2011 were noted as the meeting was not quorate. These would be agreed at the next SACRE meeting, subject to it being quorate.

It was confirmed that the revised Agreed HSACRE Constitution had been reported to Cllr David Simmonds, Deputy Leader of the Council andCabinet Member for Education and Children’s Services for approval.

The Chairman announced that he would be standing down as Chairman of HSACRE in December 2012.  He suggested that election of the Chairman for 2012/2013 should be deferred to the meeting on 7 November 2012, to allow for expressions of interest of the position to be put forward.

It was also announced that Eric Blaire, Advisor to HSACRE would be standing down at the end of the year.

The meting noted that a bid for £5,000 had been submitted to continue the funding of HSACRE. An update of the outcome would be provided at the next meeting. 

Eric Blaire advised that the last day of the Summer Term would be the start of Ramadan. Headteachers and Exam Boards would be notified of the implications this would have on schools.

During discussions it was noted that in order for HSACRE to be proactive in ensuring that schools were supported well during this period, the issue would be discussed with other Boroughs such as Newham, which had schools with a high proportion of pupils who celebrated Ramandan.

Eric Blaire advised that the SACRE Reporting and Evaluation Toolkit was a document that would help HSACRE in supporting the Local Authority with regard to providing high quality RE and collective worship in schools. The toolkit would also help HSCARE to evaluate its role and to consider its impact on pupils’ educational experience and learning.

It was suggested that a workshop or a special meeting should be set up to look at the key areas for discussion in greater detail.

The meeting highlighted that in view of the fact that many schools in Hillingdon had opted for Academy status and were therefore out of the control of the Local Authority, it would be prudent to establish which of the schools of Academy status would continue to follow the Agreed Syllabus. Any schools that did not wish to continue to use the Agreed Syllabus should then be asked whether they would wish for HSACRE to be involved in helping them to development their Agreed Syllabus.

The meeting acknowledged that funding may be required to pursue this matter and the Cabinet Member for Education and Children’s Services should be approached to provide funding to support this.

Eric Blaire reported that through HSACRE, the Heads of RE meetings were now established and self generating.

It was noted that one of the issues raised at these meetings, was the fact that schools were no longer able to include half GCSE courses as part of their results. To this end therefore, schools were now being encouraged to support extra time (such as lunch times and after school) to make up the time in order to enable pupils to complete the half subject as a whole in order to attain a full qualification.

The Chairman added that Heads of RE questioned whether there were points allocated to GCSE subjects which could be submitted by pupils when applying for colleges. It was noted however, that although the National Association of SACRE where of the view that half GCSE in RE could be accepted by colleges, this decision was entirely up to the individual colleges concerned.

It was suggested that research should be undertaken to establish whether colleges in Hillingdon (and colleges in neighbouring boroughs) accepted RE as half a subject.

The meeting was advised that a Freedom of Information request (3501) on the act of worship in Hillingdon had been recently made by the Mail on Sunday. All emails and letters relating to this issue were collated and sent to the Council’s Data Protection & Freedom of Information Officer who then responded to the request.

It was requested that a copy of the reply should be circulated to HSACRE members for information.

Eric Blaire circulated copies of the HSACRE Response to Brunel University‘s Youth on Religion (YOR) project. The meeting was informed that Alison Fothergill had collected data from the schools that had participated in the university programme to collate the responses. Over 2000 pupils from years 8, 10 and 12 out of 12 secondary schools in the Borough had taken part in the programme.

From the results shown, it was highlighted that 60% of pupils who took part in the programme had indicated that they either prayed or mediated and that 50% had learned about other faiths through activities at school or college.

A member requested that the breakdown of the percentage of the make of the various faiths of the children that took part in this cohort should also be shown in the HSACRE response to the Brunel YOR Project.

It was suggested that the figures of the number of children that had been questioned should also be included.

The Chairman add that he had been in discussion with Professor Madge (who had been involved in the project at Brunel University) to produce a DVD recording talks with students in schools about their faiths. Additional funding had been sourced through the University for this Project and it was noted that the first meeting with students was due to begin on Friday 30 March 2012.  The Chairman stated that the completed DVD would be circulated to schools in the Borough.

Those present at meeting welcome the HSACRE Response to Brunel University’s YOR Project and suggested that once it had been finalised, it should be advertised in the Hillingdon People, the Council’s free Magazine that was circulated to all residents in the Borough.

Wednesday 20 June, 7 November 2012 or 20 March 2013

It was indicated that the next meeting should be held at Holly Trinity C of E School, Rickmansworth Road, Northwood. This arrangement would need to be confirmed by Daniel Norris, the Headteacher.

• RE Conference - 'Assessing Primary RE: beyond the tick box' 

      28 March 2012

• NASACRE Annual Conference – 28 May 2012

The meeting noted the information items relating to the RE Conference - 'Assessing Primary RE: beyond the tick box' taking place on 28 March 2012 and the NASACRE Annual Conference being held on 28 May 2012.

• It was reported that the Government was setting an all party Parliamentary group on interfaith, which would be chaired by Stephen Lloyd, MP.