Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from:-

Group A

Mag Kushner

Jewish Representative

Group C

Ruth Evans

Association of School and College Leaders – (ASCL)

Mr D Parrott

The National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT)

Group D

Councillor Damani

Southampton City Council

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on 19 October 2009 be approved and signed as a correct record.  (Copy of the minutes circulated with the agenda and appended to the signed minutes). 

The SACRE reviewed and noted a verbal update provided by the Secondary Phase Inspector with regard to the issues discussed at, and arising from, the Agreed Syllabus Review meeting held on 19 October 2009.

The SACRE noted that:-

• the representative for the writing group had now attended three writing groups;
• the Agreed Syllabus needed to be accessible to all children, particularly because Ofsted were assessing vulnerable groups;
• the Agreed Syllabus needed to be fit for purpose and support teachers to deliver, playing a key role in personal learning and thinking and also community cohesion.

The representative for the writing group reported that there were no changes regarding content of the Agreed Syllabus and the SACRE noted inclusion of the following:-

• national strategies; 
• the easy to access and user friendly format;
• the updates to the Constitution regarding Humanism and Bahaii.
• recent updated Primary changes;
• possible changes regarding Assessing Pupil Progress (APP) and the way this may expand to cover a wider range of subjects as opposed to the core subjects.

The SACRE further noted that provisional dates for the sign off of the Agreed Syllabus by SACRE together with the confirmed dates for the Heads’ Conferences for Primary schools were as follows:-

• 26 April 2010 (SACRE sign off)
• 25 March 2010 (Heads’ Conference)
• 27 May 2010 (Heads’ Conference)
• 25 June 2010 (ASC sign off).

In addition, the following points were received and noted:-

• that the budget should include some allocation for training teachers with regard to Religious Education and that time was needed to be set aside to do this.
• that the national strategy funding was only allocated to core subjects, excluding RE.

A discussion concerning the best way to ‘roll out’ the new Agreed Syllabus and various practicalities took place.

RESOLVED

(i)

(ii)

(iii)

that future meeting dates of the Agreed Syllabus Conference for SACRE be confirmed;

that the Hampshire Inspector be requested to provide a detailed time line for the implementation and ‘roll out’ of the Agreed Syllabus; and

that Councillor Daunt be requested to investigate the distribution of the Agreed Syllabus (electronic or hard copies).

There was no significant feedback to note, other than that already mentioned in Item 5 above.