East Sussex SACRE

Notes of the meeting

Date:

Thursday 29 February 2024

 

Venue:

Centre 2F / Microsoft Teams

 

Chairperson:

Councillor Roy Galley

 

Clerk:

Julie Stevens

 

SACRE members

present:

 

 

Also present:

 

Cllr Roy Galley, Cllr Colin Belsey, Cllr Abul Azad, Cllr Trevor Webb, Cllr Steve Murphy, Peter White, Rosemary Roberts, Claire Rivers, Dr Norman Williamson, Pamela Hartog, Elizabeth Coleman, Father David Hill, Helen Key

 

Barry Blakelock, Claire Ramalli

 

 

Apologies:

Jon Gilbert, Laura Cooper, Sam Keddie, Kirsty Eydmann

 

 

Item

Annual General Meeting

Action

1

 

 

 

1.1

 

 

 

1.2

 

 

 

 

1.3

Cllr Galley welcomed everyone present at the meeting. There were no declarations of conflicts of interest.

Apologies were noted.

 

The SACRE Annual Report was agreed by SACRE and will be presented to the People Scrutiny Committee on 11 March. Peter White will attend the meeting of the Scrutiny Committee on behalf of Cllr Galley.

 

Barry Blakelock presented the Budget update to the meeting and confirmed that a budget of £10,000 had been agreed by the Local Authority for the next two academic years. This was a slight increase than previously expected.

The Aquinas Trust had agreed to sponsor the SACRE Conference this year with £500.00.

 

SACRE agreed the Budget update.

 

 

 

Business Meeting

 

2.

 

 

 

2.1

 

 

2.2

 

2.3

 

 

 

2.4

 

 

2.5

 

 

 

2.6

 

 

 

 

2.7

 

Minutes of meeting 17 November 2023 & Matters Arising

 

Minutes of the last meeting were agreed as accurate.

Matters arising:

ACTION: Julie to contact Jon Gilbert re his outstanding action regarding contact with Headteachers to arrange visits by SACRE.

 

Helen Key advised that the training dates had been confirmed with RE Today.

 

Barry is putting together the protocol for school websites and will firm up the protocol with Claire Ramalli and Rosemary Roberts. Rosemary has volunteered to check out school websites and will report back to SACRE. ACTION: Barry/Rosemary

 

Father David and Helen Key to complete the SACRE Induction form - Barry will pick this up. ACTION: Father David/Helen Key/Barry

 

Claire Ramalli advised that a joint application with Hackney SACRE for a Westhill Award had been suggested by her mentor. SACRE agreed for Claire to go ahead with the joint application. ACTION: Claire Ramalli to take forward

 

Julie to chase Nicola Blake for an update on how the Local Authority are dealing with antisemitism in schools. ACTION: Julie to contact Nicola

 

Cllr Galley has contacted the Methodist community re a new member for SACRE but has not yet received a response. Cllr Webb is in touch with his contacts within the Quaker and the Greek Orthodox communities.

ACTION: Peter White to contact the Mayor of Seaford regarding a Quaker rep for SACRE.

 

 

 

 

 

Clerk

 

 

 

 

 

BB/RR

 

 

FD/HK/BB

 

 

 

CRa

 

 

Clerk

 

 

 

 

Cllr G

Cllr W

 

PW

3.

 

3.1

 

 

 

 

 

3.2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.3

Network Updates

 

Secondary – Helen Key

The last secondary hub meeting was held on 8 November with five people attending. RE Today provided training on one of the sections from the RE Syllabus.

Two further twilights have been arranged for 21 March and 18 April.

In person conference will be held on 10 June.

 

Primary – Claire Rivers

Good feedback had been received for the network meetings/conference and support from Lois Burton SLE.

At the network meeting on 21 February Stephen Pett from RE Today guided people through elements of Understanding Christianity.

The next network meeting is on 18 April, Julia Diamond will lead on this. Julia Diamond will also be running the conference on 26 June.

The Understanding Christianity course via RE Today is expensive for non-church schools – at £210.00 – SACRE agreed for Claire to set something up via the Diocese rather than using RE Today. ACTION: Claire will take this forward.

 

Special Schools

There was no update as Kirsty Eydmann had given late apologies to the meeting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CRi

4.

 

4.1

 

 

 

 

 

4.2

 

4.2

Programme of School visits

 

Grovelands visit arranged for 6 March, Claire Ramalli and Cllr Belsey will attend.

Claire is in contact with Priory School; Barry waiting to hear from Seahaven. Peter would like to join the visit to Seahaven.

Barry is meeting with Jon Gilbert and will prompt him regarding school visits.

Cllr Murphy shared his concern that there is no faith school in Hailsham.

 

The visits to Blackboys and Willingdon had been very positive.

 

A huge thank you was noted to those members who attended the visits.

 

 

5.

 

5.1

 

 

 

5.2

 

 

 

5.3

GCSE Full Course Entries

 

Claire Ramalli shared data from NASACRE showing the percentage of students at KS4 entering for RE GCSE full course from each Local Authority. This data is not to be shared more widely than to the SACRE members.

 

It was suggested that SACRE members could consider visiting schools which need some support at KS4. Also, the schools could be reminded through the network meetings of Padlett resources for KS4.

 

Barry added that all students should be given the entitlement to study RE. This is something that could be raised at school visits.

 

 

6

 

6.1

 

 

 

 

6.2

 

 

 

6.3

 

 

 

6.4

 

 

Claire Ramalli update

 

Ramadan Guidance for Schools

The Guidance had been circulated to all schools in good time for the start of Ramadan.

Barry suggested that we gather information for other religious festivals e.g. Passover. ACTION: Barry will start to put something together to be added to our web page.

 

National Content Standard

This was shared with SACRE, so they are aware this has been published.

No action is required by SACRE.

 

NASACRE Committee nominations

Cllr Galley agreed to nominate Claire Ramalli for a place on the NASACRE Executive Committee. ACTION: Cllr Galley

 

NASACRE Ofsted Report

This report was a national publication – for SACRE to be aware of.

 

 

 

 

 

 

BB

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cllr G

7

 

7.1

 

 

 

 

 

 

7.2

 

 

 

7.3

 

 

Barry Blakelock Update

 

Progress on Collective Worship

A well-attended on-line session had been held this morning for Governors. The training deck will be made available. There is a second session taking place on 19 March to attract a different audience.

Collective Worship guidance will be completed after both training sessions. Barry and Claire are working on the draft version.

 

Code of Conduct

Barry is currently reviewing this against the NASACRE template. This will be circulated to SACRE for final agreement.

 

Czone

ACTION: Julie will advise Barry of a contact for Czone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clerk

8

 

 

 

 

8.1

 

 

 

Self-evaluation Toolkit / Development Plan

 

The focus of this session was on Community Cohesion - looking at the demographic data for East Sussex and how SACRE represent the local community.

 

The following actions were agreed:

Pen portraits of each SACRE member to be included on the Czone site.

Raise the demographic point at Scrutiny committee if appropriate – ACTION: Peter

Consider including a ‘stand’ at the inter-faith event held in Hastings in November to raise the profile of SACRE. Fr David and Liz Coleman can supply the details.

Barry will look at the census data for 2021 and share findings with SACRE at the next meeting.

‘My World, My Faith’ agenda item to be continued at some point. Cllr Galley will discuss with the clerk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PW

 

BB

BB

 

Cllr G

9

 

9.1

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (Standing item)

 

It was agreed that Felicity Harvest would join the East Sussex SACRE as a Humanist representative.

ACTION: The clerk will send the meeting invites to Felicity.

 

 

 

 

 

Clerk

 

Date of next meeting:  Tuesday 18 June 2024 – 2 - 4pm

 

Venue: County Hall & MS Teams