Transcript

Great, thank you very much. Well, welcome everybody, those here in the room and those who joined online. As ever, we will begin tonight just introducing ourselves. So I'll start off, we'll go around the room and then we'll move online. So I'm Ed Hoyle, I'm Chair of SACRE and I'm a humanist on the other phase panel. Pauline, would you just mind? Oh, Pauline Egan, I work for London Borough of Newham at Manly Maclarkey on behalf of Denver. I'm Ellen Kemp, I'm a Governor at School Government in Newham and I'm Chair of the Community and Planning. Ed Clinton, I'm the advisor just trying to get some power to my computer. And online we have, I'm going to work my way down the names on the screen. Ruth? Good evening, Ruth Everett, Representative Church of England. I'm a Dyson Advisor. Zarnak Bar on the Teachers' Panel. Emma? Yeah, good evening, everybody. Thank you. Sarah? Hi, Sarah Heath and I am on the Teachers' Panel. Jill? Hi, I'm just observing today. I'm a newer Youth Champion for the Church of England. Thanks. Welcome, Jill. Lucy? Hello, I'm Lucy. I'm also on the Teachers' Panel. Asma? You're still on mute, Asma. Sorry, sorry. Hi, I'm Asma Zain. I'm a teacher. I'm on other faiths panel representing Shia Islam. Thank you. And, oh, Saquat, would you like to introduce yourself? Hi, good evening, all. Apologies for the delay. Am I audible? Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. I hear you. Okay, thanks. Yeah, so I'm Saquat Ali, a School Governor for Plashet, local authorities. Thank you. Thank you. Marie? Hi there. I'm Marie Hardy. I'm on the Teachers' Panel. Apata? Good evening, everyone. Apata Rauf. I'm representing the Sunni Muslims here. Thank you. Okay, I think I've invited everyone I can see. If there's anyone else online who hasn't spoken, introduced themselves, please do so now. Okay, I think that was everybody then. Great. Great. So in terms of the order of business, we have the agenda in the pack. The only thing I'm a bit unsure of, Claire, is you had some exciting news. I don't know when you wanted to do that. Yes. Well, Lucy knows this. I'm not sure Sarah knows it. But I think she does. Amazon knows it. So there's a few of us who know it. But I just thought the whole of SACRE should know that we've won a London-wide Interfaith Award. And for our work with student RE Matters, and we have won 500 pounds, woohoo, and a swanky meal at Wimpole Street, which already sounds slightly botany. But if I tell you where and we've been told we've got address smart at the Royal Society of Medicine, and from 6.30 to 9.30. So Katrina and I are going to go to that to receive our award. And then Lucy and Katrina are going to a networking lunch where we get to meet lots of other people who might be interested in our work and potentially funding it in the future. So anyway, we've never won an award. I think that's more surprising than the fact that you won it. Well, I think congratulations are in order, especially to you, Claire, and to everyone else, Katrina, Lucy, and everyone else who's contributed to student RE Matters over years. And it's been great in the past having all the student members turning up and talking. Ammar, would you like to say something? Yeah, just on behalf of everybody here, I think I just want to say congratulations to everybody involved. I know I've only recently joined, I suppose, the SACRE cohort of people here, but I think that's testament to all the due diligence everybody's put into. So I just want to say thanks a lot to everybody involved here. It's a great achievement and well done on that, because I think as a local authority, I always mention, and I speak highly of SACRE in terms of what Newman's doing, and I think other local authorities are starting to recognize that, and reward and recognition is a key part of actually showing the demonstration of everybody involved in what they're looking to commit and do here. So I just want to say thank you very much to Claire and everybody involved here. I think that's a really good achievement. And Claire, just a quick question. Is that going to be put out in terms of comms to everybody in the newsletters, and what's the game plan? Because I think somebody in my role and capacity would want to spread that message as far as wide as possible. So yeah, what's the game plan so I can start telling people? Yeah, so I'm definitely going to be telling Annabelle Bates tomorrow. As you know, we've had, well, as Amal will know, we've had a sort of three-week off-stead scrutiny around SCND. So Annabelle only emailed me for the first time, or Chetna's arrived, only emailed for the first time this week to say I'm back. I know I've got to catch up with you. I know there's a lot to do. So I will email her tomorrow and hopefully get to talk to her on Friday or tomorrow, Amal. Once I've told her, then I'm going to put something into the Headteacher newsletter. I'm going to send something to the Mayor, and then I will formally send something to SACRE, and then you can shout it loud as far as I'm concerned. That's much appreciated, and well done once again. Thank you. Great. As far as the order of business goes, I think we will stick now to the rest of the agenda. We've got quite a few apologies for absence from Anne Easter, from Joshua Garfield, from Simon Stephen Saxby, and Aisha Shaikh. Apologies for lateness. And I've got another one in my diary, sorry Pauline, which is Joe Matthias, who's part of the teacher group. She must have emailed me because I've noted it in here. Yeah, Taranam, Afshan. Oh yeah, Taranam and Alexia. Great. Declarations of interest. Does anyone have any interests that they need to declare on this agenda? Nope. Maybe one day. I sometimes have to declare stuff, but apart from me, no one else ever seems to declare anything. Ruth? Yes, Ruth. I think I should just declare that I'm a joint chair of ARIAC, which is a national RE organisation, and I'm also a trustee of charity as well. They're things that have RE interests, so. Okay, thank you. Then one, two, the minutes. I'll take the minutes as read. I'm going to make Anne Easter's usual correction. Under Forum of Faiths, her name is spelled... Annie. Yeah, Anne Easter, on Forum of Faiths. Her name is misspelled in three out of the four places. But yeah, she normally makes that mark herself, as it happens quite frequently, but she's not here. Now, did anyone else have any comments or corrections they would like to make to the minutes? No, I thought they were fine. Anne, I don't think there are any specific action points. Pauline, there was one thing that I was discussing with Maharanth Lisa, which is can we have it in our forward plan? Every July, Nasacre send out the invoice for Nasacre membership and the webinar, which I think together is like £160. Yes, I've raised the P.O. today. Thank you. We always get to this point where we haven't paid it, so there's this lag between it going out in July and not getting to the right person. And then because I sit on the exec, I get a list of the naughty LAs that haven't processed and we're there every year. And then I come back and it always gets done, but it gets done very late. And I just think there must be a way that we can get this. I'll email them, the person in the email, and I say, copy me in. Brilliant. It will get done. Thank you. I just knew there would be a way. I struggle with NGA payment with national governors. Yeah. Anyway, that was the only thing. Right. Thank you. Agenda item five is Forum of Faith update, which an Easter normally gives. So I don't know. We've got a whole range of things coming up with a number of different celebrations, haven't we, that the council is putting on. I don't know if Ama knows anything more than I, but there are dates definitely around Diwali and Fury and Alex's birthday and things. We got an email, didn't we, from Newham. I can quickly do a quick update on behalf of Anne, if needs be. I know there were some previous celebrations that were put out by the council. I know one of the big ones that's up and coming, as Claire mentioned, is Diwali is up and coming and Bandi Shor Devas, which is celebrated by the Hindu and Sikh community. Those will start taking place next week. So guidance from the 30th, well, some people might celebrate on the 31st or 1st of November, and then you've got guidance for around, everyone will get an invitation come out from the mayor as well for Gulana Gurbub, which is normally going to be landing on the 17th of Sunday. So most people will start at breaking it then, and same again, an invitation will go out to the wider consensus of everybody. And then as we move on from there, you'll probably see a few more activities that come on and invites come out to people. So those are the most upcoming ones for the next few weeks. And obviously, if anybody's missing an invitation, do let me know, then I'll probably maybe put it in the chat for now. I can send a brief image of the Diwali programme. I can post that in the zoom chat for everybody's reference for now, if that's helpful. Brilliant. And we also have a civic carol service happening on Friday, the 13th of December. So we've got Diwali, Bandi Shor, Giri and Alex's birthday, and a carol service. I think it's at St. John's in Stratford. But when I've got more details, I can send that out to SACRAE. Just so we know what's going on in terms of Interfaith. We've also got Interfaith Week that's running from the 10th to the 17th of November. We've been doing a lot of work with schools around that Lucy and I were flagging up with the secondary leads a week and a half ago. We were flagging up last week, Taryn and I with the primary leads last week. And there's lots of resources on a website that we've given them. And the theme this year is really nice sharing my story, building our communities. So that thing of listening to somebody, and through that listening, building hopefully empathy. So if those of you who are teachers, if you have anything going on in your schools, the faith and belief forum are very interested in case studies or any images. You may know, you may not know, but the Interfaith Network funding was ceased by government last Easter time. So a number of organisations have come together, including the national SACRAE organisation, faith and belief forum, a sort of peace organisation, some other interfaith national bodies have come together and sort of put something together so it didn't drop off the schools or communities this year. But hopefully next year, we will find funding again comes from government and it may be a different sort of body that's set up, who knows, but the idea was to keep it going this year. So all of those new events definitely ought to feed in the pictures we should be feeding in our pictures into sharing our story, building our community. - And item six is Student RE Matters update.

• Lucy is here and she has a PowerPoint, I think. - I do have a PowerPoint. Can I share my screen?
• Yes, I've just done. Yes, you can. - Perfect. Can everyone see that?
• Yep. - Perfect. So this is the project that I spoke about in our last meeting. Let me make it into a slideshow. Here we go. There we go. Okay. So as you know from our last meeting, the project's called My Community and Me, which kind of interlinks with what you just said about Interfaith Week, actually, Claire, thinking about people's voices and their communities. - Yeah, we can send in some of our winning photos, actually, couldn't we? - That's a really good point, yeah. So it was called My Newham and it was getting them to think about their own community, what they see in their community, and how that kind of links with them and their identity. And they were exploring that through photography. So our first session, which I spoke about in our last meeting, was actually with our local photographer, Meg Khan, who's an ex-Blaschitt School student. And she kind of talked to us about symbolism and photography and where to look for meaning. And then from then on, we kind of visited lots of different places of worship. And in each session, the students took photographs and they interviewed religious leaders. I've updated you all pretty much up to this point, which was our last meeting. In our last session on June the 4th, we went to these three different places of worship, so the Mandir, a synagogue, and a vihara. And students, again, took photos, but they also, within this meeting, looked at kind of an overview of all the pictures that they'd taken during their unit. And they chose their kind of favourite pictures that they wanted to kind of exhibit and display and use within their schools. And then they started to think about how those images can be used for a wider audience, and how they can be used within their school environment to kind of share the project and share their learning. So they started to write some questions about their pictures and getting other students to think when they see them. I'm just going to show you some examples of what they came up with. So this is when we went to West Ham Park. And then they've chosen this image. You can see, if you look closely enough, they're doing little heart symbols with their hands. And then these are some of their kind of almost kind of philosophical questions to get other learners to start thinking. Is it always right to love everyone? Is love stronger where it is shared? So that's what they came up with. And then this is from our visits to the Goodwara.
• It's Pradeep's not here, but that is Pradeep part of Sapri, isn't it?
• I think he'd recognise himself. Yes, so that was who do you turn to for advice, which I think is a really interesting question. And then this question, because it's linked to obviously the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy book asking, is ancient advice still worth reading today? So you can just see the different images that they selected and the kind of key kind of thinking questions that they came up with. And we tried to show you examples from each of the different places that we visited. So what the students will do with that now is up to them, but we're hoping that they will use them in lessons, in assemblies, and kind of share their learning so that other students can kind of gain from their experience. And it also helps them take on leadership roles and practise kind of other skills like presenting and feeding back within their school environment. In terms of what the students themselves who are part of our eMatters group this year got out of it, this is some of the feedback that we got, which are kind of student quotes. So things about kind of understanding different religions and worldviews, getting to visit different sacred places, thinking about diversity, so I've skipped through that, thinking about the fact that stereotyping can be subconscious, and thinking, some students just talking about the fact they found it interesting, well, kind of what they were learning and working with others. So this is a nice quote, I think religion is more diverse and new and different religions can live together peacefully with cooperation. So that's the students themselves who are part of the group's feedback about their project this year. And that links really nicely with an introduction to what we're going to be doing for our eMatters this year going into 2025. So we're focusing our student group this year on a challenging stereotypes roadshow. So it's a slightly different format. Well, actually, it's a very different format to what we normally do. We normally have a group, there's about 10 students approximately from each participating school, bring their students to St. Bon's, and we have a meeting, a termly meeting, where we go, so half termly meeting where we go to different places of worship, or we do different kind of workshops around whatever project we choose for the year. But this year is really different because we're actually going into different schools themselves. So we're basically going to be taking a previous project that we did in 2022 and 2023, which was called challenging stereotypes. And from that student work, we created a toolkit of lessons and films and ideas. And we're taking what the students have co produced. And we're making that into workshops to teach a wider audience of a wider, wider amount of students about stereotypes, religious stereotypes, and how to challenge them. So what's really nice about this year, it's actually us going to be moving around, not the students. And we're going to be visiting lots of different schools and taking this kind of roadshow on tour, if you like the Newham tour of the roadshow. We've got some new schools, which we're really excited about this year. And we've got some schools we've had previously participate in students that great student re matter, sorry, come back to us, which is really lovely, because I think it's fair to say, Claire, that after COVID, it's been sort of quite a long journey to get a lot of schools back. This year is really encouraging. And I think it shows with we're definitely getting there. We've got Chobham working with us for the first time. So we're really excited about that. We've got Kingsford, we've got Little Ilford, we've got Lister and Rokeby. And these are all schools that we've either never worked with before or have previously, but haven't for several years. And that includes our kind of more stalwart schools that we work with every year, like some bonds, like Plashit, like Azar and Kawat. And Stratford. Yeah, so we've got down to five schools, really, haven't we, Lucy, that were really committed to this work. So yeah, just trying a different approach. And so we've managed to kind of, well, we've been successful in getting into those schools this year. So we're hoping those partnerships will continue through the next number of years. So yeah, that's, that's our general update on student SACRE. I don't know if there's anything else you want to add, Claire? Just two things. Last Friday, I led a workshop at RE Exchange, which was a very big RE conference with 500 delegates. So I led it on our toolkit. And I also did a workshop on it in the summer at the Advisors and University Lecturers Joint Conference in Birmingham. And we've now got, so Bristol University is quite interested in doing some research into outcomes from what we've done. And we've actually got somebody who's either doing a Farmington or a research project on using our toolkit, because they want to see again, what it does in reality. So we've got it as a free resource on the TES, we've had 1000s of downloads of it by teachers. Obviously, we're not producing any training for anybody of how to use it, because that then takes some funding, but we've put out what we've done. So I think it's interesting that we do this stuff in Newham, but it does go wider than Newham. And we're always trying to put our stuff wider than Newham. And what is TES for members of the public? Teacher Educational Supplement. It's the teacher newspaper. Sorry, Pauline, very good question. And it's really, it's really good that Chobham were joined, because as a school that was never a local authority school, the fact that the message is getting through, I guess, a school that wasn't typically part of the networks is great. I think that's triumphant. Yeah. I mean, it's also a triumph at Chobham, because everybody does GCSE now. And that wasn't the case a few years ago. And I helped them a bit with General RE. And then we've moved over to GCSE RE. And I was in in the summer helping them to set up A level. So they've now got students that have come through the GCSE that are now wanting to go on further. So it's quite interesting how that school has developed. We did. We had a Sacre meeting there. And that was when they weren't doing any RE. And then I watched their collective worship. Collective worship, yeah. Yeah, that Sacre, that was a long time ago. It's a long, long time ago. And Jeremy was chair before Marie. There you go. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Lucy. Thanks, Lucy. She's done very well. So she's done very well to come. I'm sorry, she's been off it poorly today. I did say she didn't need to come but a bit like Marie, they're all still coming. That's absolutely fine. Nice to meet you all again. I'm going to stop sharing my screen. And you have to remember that Marie's hardy as well. Marie is hardy. That is true. Hopefully she's giggling in some room with her camera off. Thanks, Lucy. No worries. Thank you. Then agenda item seven. And, Clay, you've put together some tables on the engagement, we're guessing, with the various schools primary and secondary. Yes, so this full document, I don't know, those of you who are online, you're not going to be able to see this, so you're just going to have to trust us. Because when Marie's printed out our agenda pack, what happens on an Excel spreadsheet, it will just print the one page. And you have to then ask it to go to another tab to print another page. So I said, or could we have the whole thing printed out at the meeting. But what we did for the first time this year, and what I'll do is I'll go into my emails when I finish talking, and I will send it out to all of you so that you've got the spreadsheet, everybody. And then those of you online will be able to see it. It was on my online pack. Oh, was it? Yes. It added? It added. Okay. So you just need to open it and find it. But I just thought it was interesting, maybe for you to see exactly who turned up to what last year. Now, this comes with a rider. Just because they weren't there physically doesn't mean that they didn't watch the recording. This is wrong. Okay. So there are lots of schools for one reason or another don't turn up to things. But I know because they've asked for the recording and then I send people the recording. Now this, Georgina and I have got to work out a new system because Georgina is logged by who has booked with her, if that makes sense. So then she doesn't know about the ongoing conversations that I have. So we've got to refine, but this is our first go. Okay. So it's our first year. Open to questions now. What time do you hold the meetings for? The primary network meetings are from two to five. That may be the problem why people can't, if they can't get. The secondary meetings, which are much worse attended than the primary, are from four till six. Yeah, well they ought to be. Because my, yeah, my age, well I was horrified like you because at your meeting when I got my own chair and they had no attendance and she said I didn't have a voice. So I'll have a word with you. And also to say that some people do say we're not going to do these meetings at all this year, but we'll be in it back next year. Some schools do biannually coming to things and opt out because that saves them a bit of money and budgets are very tight. There are some schools like Bobby Moore. I can't, I mean, I got into once, but that's it. I can't get anywhere. Chobham, sort of Cleves and Bolin Trust do that sort of own thing. They don't tend to buy in most of them. So Hensington, not Sandringham. Anyway, it comes to me at Mononga. Mononga buys in. And City buy in and others don't. So there's all sorts of abnormalities. But it is interesting, isn't it? Just to look through and see who's coming to what and and also last year for Mononga, the person was on maternity leave, so they didn't buy the package last year because they knew that. So there's stories that go with data. Ruth. Yeah, I knew that about Mononga. Hello, I was just wanting to sort of reinforce the importance of perhaps tracking the recordings, especially in the light of staffing and budget controls, as you've already mentioned. So I think that will really show the impact wider. And I also felt from viewing it that it's probably the areas of interest that that school or that area are concerned at the moment, again, with that pressures of timing on teachers and commitments. Yes, let's find a way of checking who's accessing recordings. Thank you. One of the things as well with the first last time was about making sure that schools were really aware of all the opportunities. And this is potentially a great tool, because you can go to those schools that maybe aren't engaging much and say, you would turn up to this one meeting out of no, this is the whole calendar of potential meetings that were there, and you came to one or two, and there could have been loads. This could be quite useful, I think, to drum up a bit of engagement. Yeah, I think as well, I mean, I'm sharing this with you. But remember, the LA does not provide any of this training. Yeah. So this is my company, what we put on. Yeah. So schools do not have to come to any of this. And it costs to come, it costs a small amount, but it does cost something to come. And that is because the LA 15 years ago, as you know, stopped providing any CPD for schools. So, you know, this is the end of that. Some subjects then stopped completely. So history haven't had a network for 15 years, geography haven't had a network for 15 years. There's all sorts of places that don't, subjects that don't have networks because of that decision 15 years ago. And to be fair to the LA, the money was no longer given to the LA, it was given directly to schools. So schools could choose what to use that money for. It is not ring fenced. So it does not have to be used for CPD. And up till now, the present government has upped the money going to schools to pay for salaries. But schools have had to find that money for salaries and jobs within the total budget where things, you know, pay increases and things have been given. But the DfE money hasn't gone up at all. And so you often find the CPD budget is being used to pay for teacher or a teaching assistant to help with SEND pupils. So I'm not having a pop at schools here. I think, I think we should look at this very positively to say there are this many schools in that environment that are prepared to pay to have some support around their RE. What schools get from the LA is once every five years, a day of training. That's what the LA provides for our schools. You've got two hands up. Interesting context. I was just saying that we can not make one more column saying recording and who's used the recording. That's all I was gonna say. Yeah, we've already done it for this year. It's just we didn't think of it last year. It was our first time of doing it. So yeah. Ammar? Yeah, thanks a lot. I think this is really insightful. Just like Claire mentioned, it's really positive to see that on a grassroots level, there's a lot of primary schools really actively engaged. So that was really positive to see. I was just comparing it to secondary school in comparison. I'm just trying to understand. So it was really good to hear from Lucy that there's a lot of other schools, if you saw you talk about Roke being everybody else getting involved now, some really good practice. What's the challenge with secondary schools? I just want to get a bit of understanding around it. How do we, well, good question. You mentioned just before around funding provision and so forth. Is there a scope of how we activate that more? Just a question of what could be done or if there are difficulties or barriers that you've experienced along the way. The problem is, I mean, Lucy's been out to schools. I've been out to schools. We've tried to go out to people, haven't we Lucy? And we've invited people, we give people free, come to the meetings for free, see the high quality of them. So we're not expecting anybody to come to an unknown and pay for it. We offer like free come. But actually what we're asking for them, they don't really run at cost. They run at loss because the time it takes to put things together. And we have really excellent meetings. So I think some of it is because there's a problem with RE recruitment in secondary. So we've got a lot of non-specialists teaching the subject and they've got a main other subjects. So their specialism is in another subject. And actually they've got all that prep and all that that they're keeping up with and they don't then want to go to a second lot of training. I think maternity leaves come into this, busyness, we record the meetings. And I think that's why we looked back on it and thought, actually, yes, we need to say who's looking at those recordings, because I can go down that secondary list. And I know there's a whole load of people that have done the recordings, but never physically got to the meeting. Sarah will say we tried, we didn't do this with RE, but for PSHE, we tried to do an in-person meeting to start off the year, sort of from three to five. So it didn't involve an awful lot of cover for a school. Basically couldn't get anybody there, really. Could we, Sarah? - I think also budget-wise at the moment in schools, speaking from my own experiences, we're having to rein in what we can actually afford in terms of allowing staff release to attend certain things, because schools are pressured financially. But saying that, I attended the first RE network meeting of the year, this academic year, and the recording that we did around the training was excellent. So I think absolutely tracking the access of the training through the recording is the right way to go. And also maybe, I know Lucy's doing this anyway, but looking at the evaluations of how people are actually using that training, because I know from our perspective, it's a really useful tool to use in a department meeting, for example. So there is some really good quality stuff there. It's just knowing exactly how it's being accessed and how it's being used. - Jane, did you... - Yes, I was just wondering what the correlation was between GCSE results in RE and attendance here. And what made me think of it was that I'm sure I read somewhere, didn't I, that St. Bon's had very good results and high levels. So is it because they're accessing the training? Do they just have good teachers, well-trained teachers there? I just wondered. - Yes, well, yeah, it doesn't come off very well because our schools that do very well, Plachette, who are totally, you know, in on everything. Brampton, who don't ever come to anything, but usually pick the best results. But they've got a big team of dedicated RE teachers. Same at St. Bon's, they've got a big team of dedicated, they haven't got people with other specialisms using at GCSE. Now we keep in touch with all of those people and we often, so everybody gets our RE newsletter. So one of the things that we do, as you know, every term is this big, long, usually eight sides of A4 newsletter. But actually that props up a lot of schools because we know they can't afford the CPD, potentially. And so the reason we do the newsletter for free for everybody is actually it's giving them the good stuff. And I think what Sarah's saying is true. So we had a masterclass this time on Sunni and Shia Islam. And I know already three departments have used that sort of 40-minute recording as something they've used in a meeting with their wider staff. And then talking about, right, what have we learnt from it? How does this affect our lessons? But you've just got to get them there. You've got to get somebody there. Or the problem is with the recording is getting them to watch it. So I don't know, people can ask for the recording, but I don't know if they've watched it. So I can add that. Go on, Sarah. I don't know how you would do this and you would need to talk to someone more technologically savvy than me. But I receive emails, particularly from recruitment agencies, for example, where in order to access the CV, I have to put my email in and that then tells them that I've accessed it. Does that make sense? Yeah. I know my work on our website, everything is tracked, like how long people spend on individual IP addresses, how long people spend looking at a page. Is it focused attention? Is it not? I mean, there's loads of tools out there, but I guess it's just how we think. It's got her hand up as well, to privacy. I was just going to say, hopefully, I think if we're able to build deeper relationships with some of these other secondary schools with the student RE matters, that might hopefully help us get more people at the network meetings when they're happening. I think echo what Sarah said, that there is this economic budget pressure on schools. I think if we had all the money in the world, like, you know, the miracle solution, if we could pay for people to be out for an afternoon to have the meeting, we'd have every school in Newham there. But I think our issue is particularly with the secondary, it's just we had to put it at that time to get anyone to attend, because people couldn't get the cover to get out to go to a meeting during the day. But in doing that, it's also it's kind of like a double edged sword, it's become more difficult for people to attend, because then they have to take time out of their personal life to do that. And there's everything else that's happening, and then after school meetings and all of those things. So it's quite a hard thing to come up with a solution to, but I think the recordings are a really good way, exactly what you've said of getting people to access that learning and getting it to reach a wider audience. So hopefully, that's one kind of almost like an easy win that we can do, that doesn't really involve kind of a lot of labour for people or schools, it doesn't involve any extra cover, it doesn't involve paying for people to go out somewhere. But it hopefully means that that learning that is in those meetings, particularly the masterclasses are shared with a kind of wider audience to increase the expertise of more teachers in Newham. Okay, thank you. Thanks, everyone. Let's move on then, shall we, to the we're up, oh, we're up to the Nasacre annual conference. Just to let you know, I think Saquat may have issued a payment for this. So Saquat, is this now real? But we've got Stratford Town Hall, there he is, Stratford Town Hall on the 19th of May for the Nasacre conference. If you want to come for the day, let me know because you can be one of my helpers putting on the conference, it won't cost us. And obviously, we'll have a couple of paid delegates there as normal, but it's on our doorstep. So not quite on Ruth's doorstep, but there's a potential of a fast train in Yeah, so yeah, it's at our town hall. And because I'm booking it via my role in the council, we've got a much cheaper price for the conference, which is really exciting. But only if Saquat pays the invoice for the next couple of days. Yes, just on that, and thank you, Claire, for arranging that. So I mean, we got a discount because of Claire, so that makes it good. And as per the Nasacre meeting, actually, we are hosting the Nasacre conference this year as a new Nasacre. So that's a very good achievement for us. I meant to do that as well. And like, but me and Claire will have more updates, I mean, further. And we was thinking of inviting, like one of our local MPs to the Sacre, because Steven Timms, again, like, you know, that will be something in the pipeline, I mean, I mean, used to be yet to be confirmed. Claire. So but one thing, Claire, so just regarding this payment, are we paying it just one off upfront? Is that what it is? Yeah, to get the special deal, we just have to pay one off. But we can cancel with up to one calendar month, and get a total refund. We don't get a total refund if we're cancelling after a month, but we're not going to cancel, so it'll be fine. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you and cancel for the discounted rate. Did you say May the 19th? Monday, May the 19th. For anybody who can be free that day, please let me know because I'd love to make use of you. It's from, it's basically, it will start at about 10.30.11. I'll be in from about 7.30 setting up, no doubt, but it will start at about 10.30.11. And it usually finishes by 3.30. Thanks. Right. Thank you. We've got to find caterers, and we've got to find people to do all the IT and the audio and stuff. So if anybody knows anybody in the area that they would recommend, let me know. That's my next job is to find those things. How many attendings would that be? Well, for the national conference, we can go up to 300. Usually the conference is about 120 people, but we've got a bigger arena this year, so it'll be interesting. We couldn't get all the sacres in who wanted to come last year, so that was the idea of going to a bigger room where we could get more people. Then agenda item nine, it's place of worship plans. It says pages 13 to 22 here, but I don't know if those quite relate. So what you've got on page 13 is just some updates for things that I thought were interesting in the news. A couple of those around, as you saw, St Bon's, and we have got some new places of worship posters. As I said, I didn't make it into the pack, so I don't know whether they existed as a separate thing. If not, I can send them, that's fine. We've got new posters. Okay, great. I'll send an email. I'll send you all the posters. Pulling on the next place of worship competition. Yeah, we handed them all out at the network meetings and I've put them in the post, and they're all going on. Excellent. Okay, then we'll move on to the annual self-evaluation kit and actions. Yes. I wanted to do this before we got to the draft priorities, because I thought there might be things that come up from the toolkit to that. I know Kishore's here now. Oh, and Alicia's here now. Let's see all these names on the side there. Are people who are here, but with their cameras off, are you able to... I can put you into a breakout room in order for us to do different sections. Hi, Alicia. Is everybody okay to do that? If you can put your camera on, if you're happy to go into a breakout room and work on a section, then we could probably knock off a section here and then we'll see. Okay, so we could have, Pauline, if I come and do the breakout room. So, if you tell me who to put into what room. Yeah, that's fine. I've done four rooms, is that enough? Three rooms, I would say. Okay. Okay, so if we do section one in here, and then if we have Faith, Ruth, Everett, and Sequat to do section two, and then if we have Chetna, Alicia, and Marie to do section three, and then if we have Asma, Kishore, and Izzan to do section four, and we'll do section five, or we might do that all together. Are you still there? You happen to go into a room? I'll put them into three, and Jill Duncan, and I've got whatever room you like. If Jill can come in with me, please. Okay, yeah, if Jill can go in with Ruth. Ruth is in room one, aren't you, Ruth? Yeah, thank you. I've got Actor Ralph left. Actors in room three. Marvelous. So, we'll open the rooms, and we'll have, should we have 10 minutes in our room? So, I've got Samantha Forbes now. Where do you want Samantha Forbes? Room choice. I am just shadowing you. Oh, that's it. I remember now. Oh, yeah, yes, of course. From St Helens. I'm sorry. I was like, Samantha? We haven't got anybody on us, Acre. That's it. Samantha's just started. We should have welcomed you at the start. I'm so sorry, Sam. She just started as a new chair in another sacre in St Helens, and so she asked if she could come and watch one of our sacre meetings. Oh, lovely. So, hi, Sam. So, put Sam in room one. That's fine. Great. Is everyone sorted now? That should be everybody. Okay, so you're going to have 10 minutes. We'll come back at 7.40. 7.40? We'll close the rooms at 7.38. That will give everybody time to come back. Open all rooms. Thank you, everyone, and we'll pause our recording, I think, now once they're open. Or do we just turn off our mics and we carry on with the recording? I'll turn off the mics. And then we can probably Are we back in the main meeting? Mute. Yes, all right. We're back. Yes, we can hear you. And you can see us. Yes, and we can see you as well. Thank you. Hopefully, someone in each group got the instruction to just prepare some notes on what you discussed and the outcome. And then I think the most efficient would be if those were sent to Pauline or maybe even put them out, or sent to Claire, and Claire can forward them to Pauline if you don't know. Yeah, so you might have filled in the form. If you filled in the form, somebody send that to Pauline and say which group you were. Yeah. And then section five, do you want a broader discussion? We did look at it in our group. Well, I think we just need to go through each thing and say overall, if there were any, could do even better points. I think that's our feedback from this activity, really. I mean, we can say with group, we looked at area one management of SACRAE in partnership with the LA and other key stakeholders. And basically, we cut ourselves advanced in all of the areas. But we did have a couple of even better rifts. So we were thinking this is a while since we had a lead officer from the LA as part of SACRAE, and we thought that would be great. And maybe talking to the LA and thinking strategically about doing something every other year, rather than once every five years around the agreed syllabus, so it's free for every school. So that could be something that within my two days a week, we look to put something in. So those were two things that we thought that could be developed. Yes. And would someone willing from the group, looking at section two, just to give a quick update? I've got a couple of EBIs from us. Overall, we said that we were advanced in terms of our section was all about teaching and learning and achievement in religious education. We said that we were advanced, our even better if though has already been touched upon in this meeting. So there is a section around LA support to promote pupil entitlement, and making sure that models for fulfilling pupil entitlement within local schools are shared with all schools, so they have an amendment menu from which to adapt an approach that meets the needs of specific priorities of their schools. So we were just talking about access to training again, and kind of echoing the conversation that we've just had and that offer that comes from the LA in terms of that sort of thing. You know, what is the provision for schools that don't put their hand in their pocket and join RE Matters from the LA. So we were just looking for a little bit more clarity on that. And we said that we have lots of the RE monitoring for the GCSE results, the access to the RE quality mark, Claire you accessing the accessing the headteachers update, the newsletter that goes to all subject leads, all of that was really useful in evidence in all the sections. We just said that we would like more exposure to schools that have not adopted the agreed syllabus and perhaps what their curriculums might look like. There's only one and that's Oasis Academy. And that's because that Glalock wrote their national RE syllabus. Everybody else is using us. Perfect. Great, thank you Sarah. And the group who were working their way through section three, anybody willing to do an update in that group? No. The effectiveness of the locally agreed syllabus. I think we were doing that, but I think we messed up. I thought we were doing two. Oh right. I'm just gonna take the ownership. I think we thought it was two, me and Mary, it's because you were in room two. You then thought you were doing two, whereas room two was doing three. Don't worry. Okay, don't worry. All right, then can we move on to section four then please, which was on collective worship. Yep, so we did the area on collective worship. So essentially across the conversation we had, we put it at established, but all three of the sections 4A, 4B and 4C. General discussion was around the idea that we have a kind of good sense of what's going on in terms of collective worship at the primary level, but secondary level not necessarily as much. So we felt that means that we'll probably need to sit somewhere at the established level. Obviously happy to kind of hear any more comments that might be to the other otherwise. I'm going to challenge you group three. I'm going to challenge you because we have the data of what every secondary school is doing in our annual report. Yep, I mean to be fair, I won't necessarily take any ownership over where we put ourselves, more of kind of a group thought. Kishore asked, did you have any thoughts that you wanted to come in on this? Yeah, I think we know that we like, you know, when we were looking at the primary schools, we said we were on advanced definitely. For secondary school, we're not saying probably it's our lack of awareness. Then, you know, what is the provision because we believe that we are doing a lot, but we're not sure. This is where we think about you saying that. This is good isn't it? Yeah, it's good and helpful because it's also maybe one of the things we've got to do next year before we do this activity. Maybe we've got to have, and this is a good point for Pauline or whoever, we need to have and for me to remember as an action point, we need to make sure you've all got the annual report in front of you because then you could go to the collective worship section and that will tell you. So we had every school report back to us and it will show you how many of the secondary schools think they're outstanding and how many think they're good and how many required improvement and then maybe we've also got to share the minutes because in February then you asked me to offer training to all those that wanted to get better or had admitted that they need and Lucy and I have done that. So it's that loop isn't it? Yeah, we have no doubt because the provision in primary school we know is the high standard because we are there like you know myself. I am in school and I know I work with you and I know how schools are doing it by working for like you know for the CPD and I've always attended when I was RE coordinator and I know it worked really well and we put like you know time in place and monitored so we know that the provision there is excellent. So again like as you said maybe if we know so by looking at that data we can see that this is obviously it's exactly it's the same so we would mark ourselves in advance then for overall. I do think there's a point and it may be that you're coming onto it Azzan in sort of 4B it came up, Ellen brought it up as well in our area that we had a time as SACRE where we often went in and watched acts of collective worship in schools and really since Covid we haven't done that at all and so maybe that's an even better riff in this area that we need to think about you having an experience and actually collective worship can be done virtually as well. I was at one yesterday, Monday? No Monday and they had me on a laptop at the side of the hall and I watched Azzan was in the room with me actually when I was watching it wasn't it Azzan and yeah so I went and attended a collective worship act for 15 minutes. Now this was in a Camden school and for me to get to that school would have been an hour and 20 minutes and to get back would have been an hour and 20 minutes for a 15-minute activity that didn't seem a good use of my day but it worked brilliantly and I think we can probably even be creative we don't need to necessarily go in physically. I mean we've talked about this before Claire but we need to try and get into more schools either in person or virtually so I think that will probably be counted as a point for even better if because it will give us more of that hands-on experience. Yeah I actually raised this point Claire because we get a lot of requests for primary schools to come to visit our temple but we haven't got any secondary schools saying can we come and see your temple. Yeah they won't they won't be able to get out Kishore because remember they've got a 40 minute or a 50 minute lesson and they've got to be able to get somewhere do something and get back because you can't get out of the next following lesson which is why going in virtually is the way that visitors happen or visitors going into school happen at secondary you'll never get them out. No no that's right and these are the things that we've been talking about and saying from from where we stand we think we can do a bit more but you're already doing it but we don't get to see it yeah the things you're saying it all makes sense so yeah perfect. So Claire should we go quickly through five and then maybe as a group go back onto two? Well we can say we we because we we've already we did quickly go through it we went through five and came out advanced in everything in five so that was that was an easy one so it's section three isn't it which is the locally agreed syllabus so does everyone want to turn to 3a? I mean we've got a clear process we're about to start again I'm really sorry everybody but we published last in 2022 which means we next have to publish in 2027 which means in 2025 I've got to put all the budgeting in place and get it agreed for us then to do the 18 months of work before we launch in 2027 so yeah it's almost like Christmas as soon as you've packed it away it comes back so but that's it's it's good that these things are looked at and it's not that we're starting from nothing it's about reviewing and improving isn't it and what we're learning all the time but yeah we're with I would say we're advanced in that because we're not behind any of our publishing dates. And monitoring is very good as well. Yes and actually we know what teachers and and one of the things we've never done but we might want to do is we might want to ask pupils and do a pupil survey about RE we've never done that before we've only ever done teacher surveys so I was thinking about that the other day actually that we probably needed some pupil voice so that's because I think we've got lots of positives that pupils would say but it would also know the good to know the negatives as well I think launching we're advanced it's always well and the fact that we have always had such a wide membership of the agreed syllabus conference we've had all those different people that have come to the faith group meetings to look at what we're doing and to think about are we doing the right thing apart from we have 35 teachers involved for eight months so I think we're definitely advanced on that. I think setting I like that because it says had clear expectations on the role of the LA before but you're very good at that Claire when you say you say you tell them what you get for what they pay for and so they know exactly they know it to the penny yes who's got their hand up hi Claire I was just wondering you know you said about pupils voice and you know sometimes the coordinators the re coordinators or whoever is the coordinator they do pupils voice so if we can get them to send it to you or something like that that might help yeah in the other way maybe what I'd quite like to do is is a Google form where all that comes in we did it last year for PSHE on RSHE and we had questions for primary and secondary so the schools could find out their pupil voice but then it all fed into my national overall or borough-wise not national what we found out from pupils so we trialed it last year for RSHE I think we could do a similar thing for RE and I think that would be really powerful thank you Chetna you're right good well I think that finishes the self-evaluation another strong results yes comes around very quickly so then on to calendar item 11 the SACRE priorities I don't think we need to look through it but I think where I put seven question marks I think we need to pick out some of those points so I might put something in there about agreed syllabus and a pupil survey I think SACRE um into schools opportunities Sarah you said something as well oh yeah the training la training um for all schools I don't want really more than 10 priorities it's a bit hard to manage everybody but yeah we said that opportunities were great if you were paid up member of RE matters yeah but for those schools that weren't the la wasn't particularly necessarily offering anything equivalent if that makes sense I think you said earlier didn't you once every three years or something you can of course yeah yeah okay I've added those things I'll adapt it see Chetna's handed is that the up from before Chetna or is it to see hands yeah okay great um all right thanks very much on that um there's only one item of other business which is uh on this education scrutiny commission um I'm looking at you Claire I mean this is a letter that has come to us as SACRE um seeing if we would like to put somebody forward because I'm on it I see I see and we used to this is the revolving uh co-opted it's willing to be on there I see yes yeah so um and is this this is what is it a one-year mission or is it something that is an ongoing sort of odd goes but you can see what what the la have done is that they've written to the diocese of Brentwood because it's for a roman catholic sensitive um so our roman catholic representative is Dr Stephen Saxby who gave his apologies being here tonight so it could be that what we want to do is ask in the minutes is Stephen would he be prepared to be and then a bit like Ellen is a rep but also here he it could be the same person but ultimately it's up to the Brentwood diocese but it's just so you know that um what the la is doing to seek to find somebody okay if we know of somebody within Newham that could do it basically that's why they've put it in is they've been without for an awful long time so Ellen remains a sacre rep church of england rep she's church of england rep on there but they're looking for a roman catholic rep oh right so we're wondering would Stephen be prepared he's our sacre roman catholic rep okay so that letter has gone officially to chance Brentwood diocese um all right thank you um we can't ask Stephen because he's not here but you will uh then final item on the agenda is the date of the next meeting looks like we've got a tentative 12th of march written down on the agenda yes is that okay for everybody march could be um the chair i mean it could be uh the roma don could be during that time yes is actors still with us i know Ramadan starts earlier this year doesn't it that's right yeah i think i think it starts at the beginning of the march and ends at the end of march so so quite oh yeah does the 12th of march work or not work if it's evening it doesn't work because like it's the the opening of the fast so um so i think what we'll have to say then is we've got to try and set a date probably in february then rather than in march february or april is april it's going to be easter and things like that so i mean february probably will work better yeah so um Pauline maybe it's worth looking at the 26th of february or i'm looking at Ramadan starts on the third first of march first of march yeah first of march February or it could be the 12th of february something like that 26th or the 12th is there a half term in february or something yeah that's why i've missed out that week in between yeah February i've got maya shivrat shivratty shivratty so that sounds like a hindu festival so that's me yeah if kishore is fine and chetna's fine then we're okay so what what they would say shivratry yeah is one of the hindu festivals 26th of february yeah shivratry happens at night so we would need that time so the 12th of february yeah seems okay that's like the 12th then and is that is your is it 7 p.m your preferred well we've we've tried something new tonight going for 630 to 8 rather than 7 to 8 30 what would people prefer i prefer this one sorry it's done okay there we are 30 to 8 done took me a little bit by surprise but but i'll be ready next time okay thank you all right there we go did we say february yes so it was the the 12th of february instead of 12th of march the 12th of march was the suggested date for going months earlier okay that's fine okay well i think at that point thank you everybody for attending thank you thank you thank you
• Thank you all. - Have a good evening.
• Thank you, bye-bye. - Good night.