Agenda and minutes

The meeting was unable to elect a Chair and Vice-Chair as it was inquorate.

Apologies for absence were received from Nick Bradley, Andy Yarrow, Cllr Liz Santry, Jennifer James and Norman Bacrac.

The Committee welcomed Cllr Rainger as a new member of the Committee.

The Committee noted a letter from Paul Dighton, the Jehovah’s Witness representative, which informed the Clerk that he wished to resign from the Committee and be replaced by Tony Hall.

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 21 June 2006.

The minutes of the meeting on 21 June 2006 were agreed, subject to the correction that the spelling of Janette Karklins and Rev Allaway’s names be corrected.

Claire Barnes from the Equalities Unit was unable to be present at the meeting but sent a note requesting input from SACRE members into Holocaust Memorial Day planning.

Events staged varied from borough to borough. Denise mentioned that, in Lewisham, a drama production was staged to bring home some of the messages about the remembrance of genocide.

MomoduSillah, an observer from the London Islamic Cultural Centre, indicated his willingness to serve on the Committee.  The Clerk agreed to pass his details on to Ms Barnes.

A number of SACRE members had attended the IslamExpo held at Alexandra Palace. Denise and Jenny visited on a weekday and the Expo was not that busy, apart from school groups who were attending.

There were a range of useful teaching resources available, including board games relating to the Hajj and other Muslim practices. Denise informed the Committee that the Expo had given her extra information about Muslim burial practices.  

There had been an Islam Awareness Week last November. There had been no publicity yet on the website for this year.

Denise informed the Committee that there was a need to review the agreed syllabus for Haringey. It was agreed that in doing so, SACRE would need to take account of the religious affiliation of pupils in Haringey schools.

The Children’s Service did not have figures for the religion of schoolchildren, as it was not data that they collected centrally. The Chair presented figures on religious affiliation from the census of 2001, which had a religion question. These figures, however, covered adults not children.

Approximately 50% of the population of Haringey described themselves as Christian, 11% as Muslim and just over 2% each as Hindu and Jewish. There were 20% of the population who stated that they had no religion and 12% of respondents did not state their religion.

Looking at other boroughs with similar demographics, it was the case that – as Christianity and Islam were the 2 most commonly-followed religions in Waltham Forest – they had decided to make study of Christianity and Islam compulsory for each Key Stage in their syllabus. Other religions would be taught, but only in one or two of either Key Stages 1, 2 or 3.

Lambeth had also drafted an agreed syllabus, copies of which were circulated by the clerk. This syllabus had been based on Greenwich’s one, which they had bought the rights to modify.

In order to work on an agreed syllabus, there would have to be an Agreed Syllabus Conference. This would consist of representatives from all the groups represented on SACRE (Groups A, B, C and D). All 4 groups would have to agree in order to move forward with a new agreed syllabus. A suggestion was made by the Chair that a meeting could be held relating to the establishment of an agreed syllabus conference on 1 November 2006.

It was proposed that, over its next few meetings, SACRE examine the self-review toolkit. Regarding Section 5, the contribution to social and racial harmony, it was thought that SACRE did well at this.

At the next meeting, the Committee agreed to look at Section 1 of the toolkit – how effectively does SACRE, in partnership with the Children’s Service, monitor and evaluate standards and the quality of provision of RE  in schools.

The updated assessment guidance was brought to the attention of members. It had an 8-point scale for measuring attainment for pupils up to Key Stage 3. There were also ‘P’ level scales for SEN pupils.

It was agreed that a letter would be sent out to school Heads informing them of the SACRE website, which forms part of the London Grid for Learning.

Cllr Jones enquired about whether schools were using this 8-point scale to assess their pupils. Denise stated that this was unknown. It was likely to be used more by specialist RE teachers in Key Stage 3 than by primary schools.

The Chair informed the Committee that the GCSE results were the only tangible measures of pupil attainment available. The data for the 2006 exams would be available for the December meeting of the Committee.

The SACRE newsletter was noted by members of the Committee. It would be distributed to schools.

Denise informed SACRE that Lord Adonis had announced that trust schools would have the same requirements to teach RE according to the locally agreed syllabus as foundation schools.

An amendment to the Education Bill had been carried giving pupils aged over 16 the right to absent themselves from collective worship. There was some disagreement over this at the national level.