Agenda item

ACTION:         Beth Rowland and Emily Waddilove to work together on budget for 2022-23 and include a wish list.

ACTION          Everyone to contact Emily Waddilove with ‘wish list’ proposal if you have one

ACTION:         Emily Waddilove and Angela Hill to proceed with the proposal for the training for secondary school staff and send SACRE members AND Primary School colleagues a link to the training.      

Budget update [EW] – please refer to page 13 of the agenda pack.

This is just a quick update on the end of the last financial year - the blue font shows the things we've spent money on since our last SACRE meeting in March where we had a discussion about how to spend some additional money that we had left in the budget. We put forward a proposal of offering our secondary schools a programme of training which SACRE members approved. So, on that basis, secondary schools have been offered one training session that took place live on zoom and then three recorded training sessions that they have been able to access whenever they like. Coming up this week, Angela and her colleagues are offering a Q&A session to follow up on the live and recorded sessions. Altogether we spent £1800 on this which, added to Angela’s invoice for her consultation time, brought our end of year spending to £9409. Just £191 short of our budget allocation of £9600.

Draft budget plan for this current financial year – please refer to page 15 of the agenda pack.

This year’s draft budget plan includes most of the things that are usually included. To avoid being in the same position as last year where we had surplus right near the end of the financial year, Emily has tried to be really forensic by working out exactly what we are going to spend. That has been made easier by the fact that we already know what will be online and what will be face to face and, of course online means we do not have to budget for travel costs and refreshments.

Our budget allocation this year is as usual £6800.  We didn't carry forward any from last year like we did previously and our budget plan, as things stand, adds up to a total of £6670. We have £130 that we haven't budgeted for yet which we could either decide to budget for or we could leave it as contingency funding depending on what people want to do.

Just to note, the syllabus review should have taken place next year but has been deferred to 2023/2024 so we will need to request a slightly higher budget in that year to take account of the additional costs.

The final budget document – page 17 of the agenda pack - documents the small sums that we have spent so far to date this financial year. It does not include Angela’s summer term invoice as she invoices us termly.

Stephen asked whether we do anything for Early Years. Angela replied that, last year, we had a network meeting with early years focus and training provided by Fiona Moss. This was well received and is something we are looking at developing in the near future.

Development Plan [AH] – please see page 19 of the agenda pack.

Angela highlighted a few items as follows:

A CORE BUSINESS Action 3 It has been very difficult for members to visit schools as before but that may be possible in the coming months. This would enable members to see what is going on in classrooms and collective assemblies. In addition, we have noted another way for members to engage with schools - by attending online network meetings as observers.

Stephen pointed out the typo in the ‘Actions’ box, it reads 2019-20 instead of 2022-23

B. To support teachers of RE … Action 1

We have surveyed teachers and listened to what they have to say in respect of their needs for training and we will continue to be flexible and offer what they need.

Instead of 3 network meetings for Primary, we have included 2 Primary network meetings, 2 Secondary network meetings and 1 Primary & Secondary network meeting. The latter has proved incredibly useful in recent years as it has enabled colleagues to come together on areas like transition and the conceptual understanding project and see them from a different perspective.

In terms of the hub projects…..There is no appetite at the moment for the syllabus to change but we have picked up on the fact that some teachers do not fully understand what the current syllabus is and its place within their teaching practice. There is a meeting planned for the pan-Berkshire hub which will be held online on 14^th July 2022. There will be more news on the syllabus review after that meeting.

The ‘Real People Real Faith’ project is ongoing with more films being made with different faith communities and also with humanists across Berkshire. These have been well received by teachers and can be access via the NATRE website.

Sam Lawless attended one of the subject knowledge training sessions for secondary schools and, speaking as a Primary RE Teacher, found it incredibly useful and would encourage other SACRE members to access the recordings and to attend future training sessions.

Angela found that comment very encouraging and reminded us that all that network meetings are open to both Primary and Secondary teachers as well as SACRE members and we try to ensure that all meetings are advertised to all. Angela and Emily are working on a one page flyer with all of the training and network opportunities for next academic year included so that teachers know what is available and can plan their diaries.

Catherine asked whether ‘getting ready for the syllabus review’ could be included in the network meetings so that teachers understand that the pan-Berkshire syllabus underpins any other schemes that might be used. Angela agreed that it is important to ensure that all RE teachers fully understand this, and this can be included in network meetings.

Stephen reminded us that with regards to membership we are a couple of members down in Group B and need a Buddhist member to join Group A. As always the best way to recruit is by personal connection/invite so please think if there is anyone you know who could join these categories.

Stephen explained for new members that we have a statutory duty to review the syllabus every 5 years and make appropriate changes based on local needs. This should have been done for 2022 but due to the pandemic we have deferred it to September 2023 with a view to having it ready for September 2024.This will then last for 5 years and will be reviewed again in 2029. Beth further explained that we work together with the ‘Hub’, which is a group consisting of all Berkshire SACRES, on the syllabus. This enables us to share costs because it takes a lot of hours and is therefore quite costly financially. The Hub meets termly and either Stephen, Beth or Angela attend the meetings. Apart from sharing the costs it also ensures that all the schools in Berkshire are working with the same syllabus. The Hub also feeds back information into NASACRE. Stephen thanked Angela for attending every hub meeting and for championing Wokingham.

ACTION:         Beth Rowland and Emily Waddilove to work together on budget for 2022-23 and include a wish list. ONGOING

ACTION          Everyone to contact Emily Waddilove with ‘wish list’ proposal if you have one ONGOING

ACTION:         Emily Waddilove and Angela Hill to proceed with the proposal for the training for secondary school staff and send SACRE members AND Primary School colleagues a link to the training. COMPLETE