Agenda item

·         Primary Schools/Network (see attached document) – David Rees

·         Secondary Schools/Network – David Taylor

·         Ramadan and exam period – Mobasshir Mushtaq

·         Other news

Primary Schools:

David Rees confirmed that the notes from the West Berks Primary RE Teachers’ meeting on 14^th May 2019 had been circulated for information. The meeting considered what had been happening on a national and local basis and what was working well and not so well.

National Updates:

·         RE Online – a new refreshed website was being launched on 25^th June 2019 which would make it easier to find resources

·         Email a Believer – this was part of RE Online and 10 faiths and world views would be represented. It would be fully monitored and edited and was an excellent way for schools to access faith communities which might not be present locally.

·         RE Definitions App – this was a free app which helped develop confidence for RE teachers and students. This was being updated for the second time and was free to use.

·         SHAP Festivals Calendar – hosted by RE Online this was free and provided festival information and links to other helpful sites.

Local Updates:

·         An update on Hub activities had been given and looked through examples of Teachers’ working group output with key questions, recommended content and outcome examples.

·         More documents had been developed since the last meeting including KS1 and KS2 Sikhism, Islam, Hinduism and Judaism – some of these had been shared and discussed and had also been distributed electronically after the meeting. It was noted that Clare Nolan had done a lot of work on this and thanks were given for that.

 Secondary Schools:

David Taylor updated SACRE in relation to Religious Education in Secondary Schools.

There were a number of challenges with Secondary Schools. A network meeting was usually held on a termly basis and the last meeting had been heard at St. Barts where concerns had been raised about the new GCSE. A further network meeting would be held in the following week at Trinity School.

Two schools were a particular concern as they were not fulfilling their duty in that every child should be receiving religious education and those schools were John O’Gaunt and Park House. John O’Gaunt had lost the GCSE and any religious education teaching that pupils received was not from a specialist in that subject. They did have specific days for the whole school, i.e. ‘iDays’ and the intention was to include some element of religious education within that. John O’Gaunt was not particularly a big academic school and David Taylor hoped to link up the school with a local faith community – Church of England was strong in Hungerford.

In respect of Park House the school did an afternoon lesson (Wednesday) each week with the whole school called “Character & Values”. There was a very small RS element to this. David Taylor confirmed that he had visited the school in September 2018 and not a lot had moved forward to start with. He had then approached Ofsted who had made contact with the school. The school had now appointed RE Coordinators for Key Stages 3 and 4.

Councillor Tony Linden queried whether Ian Pearson or the new Portfolio Holder was aware of this. David Taylor thought not but stated that he was trying to work with schools but by using the carrot method rather than the stick. He confirmed that he would raise the issue with Ian Pearson.

It was queried whether there was a legal requirement to provide a GCSE in Religious Education.  There was no requirement to provide a GCSE in Religious Education on the curriculum but there was a requirement to provide some element of religious education across the school and quite often that was just a tick box exercise. David Taylor stressed the need to tread carefully particularly if progress was being made in the schools in question.

Ramadan:

MobasshirMushtaq confirmed that he had sent around an update on fasting during the exam period. Pupils would have stopped eating at around 3am until 9pm and there were guidelines for teachers urging them to be mindful of that. There was an option for pupils not to fast during Ramadan but to do it on other days when there were no exams taking place.

Councillor Tony Linden stated that Examination Boards should be made aware of this as he would not like to see pupils disadvantaged. Clare Nolan confirmed that it was possible for these pupils to go into another room if they wished. Bernard Eggleton asked if schools were also aware. Mobasshir Mushtaq replied that some were aware and some were not but that was one of the reasons why guidelines had been produced.