The Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education (SACRE) met to discuss feedback from the NASACRE AGM, receive the Education Durham Report, and hear a personal perspective on faith and community. The meeting was also scheduled to include a review of the minutes from the previous meeting, matters arising, and chair's comments.

Education Durham Report

The Senior Professional Learning Advisor, Sarah Blakeman, prepared a report for the Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education (SACRE) that included details of courses and networks offered, in-house Continuing Professional Development (CPD) support requested by schools, Ofsted deep dive updates, and workforce data.

Courses and Networks

Education Durham offered termly networks for primary and secondary subject leaders, as well as courses to meet the needs of teachers and leaders. The report noted the following numbers booked:

• New to leading primary RE: 14
• Primary networks: 55-64
• RE courses including disciplinary literacy, curriculum progression, Hinduism and knowing the impact of your curriculum: 34

The report stated that secondary networks continue to have low attendance, largely due to increased academisation across County Durham. Moving forward, secondary support will still be offered in the form of 1-2-1 professional conversations. The course offer for 2025-2026 is almost finalised, and primary subject leaders will again be able to access 3x networks, a ‘new to leading RE’ course and an RE subject day, where three themes will be covered. Content will be finalised when the findings of the Department for Education (DfE) Curriculum and Assessment Review are published.

Evaluations of courses and networks have been very positive, with 100% of respondents saying that the sessions met their needs. The report included examples of feedback from a cross-section of respondents, including this comment from a participant in the New to leading primary RE course:

“A real co-ordinator sharing good practice in an authentic and helpful way. She was passionate about her subject, focussed on the key messages and had a breadth of knowledge. The course was well-paced, motivating and comprehensive. I think it will help me prepare for upcoming SIAMs inspection and improve the quality of RE delivery in the school particularly the progression of skills in RE.”

CPD Support Requests

Since the last SACRE meeting, there have been two contract requests for support with RE. One was to review teaching and learning in Key Stage 1¹ and Key Stage 2² in preparation for SIAMS³, and the other was to support a new subject leader with auditing RE provision and to support with identifying next steps.

Ofsted Deep Dives

There have been two deep dives into Religious Education since the last SACRE meeting: one in a primary school and the other in a secondary school. The primary school received feedback that, “in many subjects, teachers routinely revisit prior learning to ensure pupils remember things over the long term. However, this is not consistently the case. For example, in religious education, pupils learn about other faiths, but this learning is not deepened as these topics are revisited too infrequently.”

The secondary school’s RE feedback was intertwined with feedback around Personal, Social, Health and Economic education (PHSE): “Pupils benefit from an exceptionally well-constructed taught personal, social, health and economic education (PHSE) programme. The programme skilfully combines provision from subjects, including religious studies, extended form time and assemblies. This supports pupils to develop a rich understanding of the world around them. Pupils are able to speak confidently about issues such as democracy, protected characteristics and the role that faith plays in people’s lives in the context of their own community and beyond.”

Workforce Data

Schools complete the school workforce census every November, and region-specific data is circulated by NASACRE⁴ in the spring. This data gives an overview of secondary teaching hours, by percentage, and the percentage of each school’s cohort completing the RE full and short courses.

The report noted that there are some errors in the data that schools report. On reviewing Durham’s data, there are a couple of cases where schools have KS4 cohorts but have reported teaching hours as 0, so this data needs to be treated with caution. The report suggested that SACRE offer to support schools with their data returns in November 2025.

Of the schools that reported Key Stage 3 data, the 19 secondary schools reported entering students for KS4 RE examinations in 2024. All of these schools entered students for the full course qualification. One of these schools also entered students for the short course. Of the four schools where 90% or more of each cohort was entered for the full course, three of these were catholic secondaries.

Feedback from NASACRE AGM

The agenda included an item for feedback from the NASACRE AGM, though the report pack did not contain any further information about this.

My Faith & Community - A Personal Perspective

The agenda included an item to hear a personal perspective on faith and community, though the report pack did not contain any further information about this.