The Bromley Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education (SACRE) met on 2 April 2025, and agreed to appoint Kyoichiro Hosoya as a representative of the Buddhist faith. Members also discussed national and local updates on religious education, and agreed to convene an Agreed Syllabus Conference (ASC) to revise the current Bromley Agreed Syllabus.

Agreed Syllabus Conference

The council agreed to convene an Agreed Syllabus Conference (ASC) to revise the current Bromley Agreed Syllabus. The membership of the ASC will be the same as the SACRE, and the first ASC meeting was scheduled to take place on 18 June 2025. The options for consideration were to leave the Agreed Syllabus as it is, purchase another syllabus, or develop the current Agreed Syllabus further. The council voted to revise the current Agreed Syllabus.

National Updates

The SACRE RE Adviser updated members on the NASACRE Conference, which she and Reverend Roger Bristow, Chairman of the SACRE, would be attending. She also spoke about the Ofsted report card consultation, and the Curriculum and Assessment Review interim report.

The SACRE RE Adviser noted that Ofsted were encouraging everyone to look at the consultation proposals for the 'report card', which had five main sections, aimed to provide a simpler and more transparent process of evaluating schools. She noted that because RE was not currently part of the national curriculum, it was not clear where RE sat within this report card, and questioned whether schools that did not meet the statutory obligations to deliver RE could still receive an exemplary report.

The SACRE RE Adviser also informed members that the government were undertaking a Curriculum and Assessment Review. RE was referenced on page 29 of the interim report, which included:

• acknowledgement that the implementation of the English Baccalaureate (EBacc), and RE not being included within it, had an impact on the quality and amount of RE being studied in schools;

• awareness that RE was impacted by the exam-only system;

• consideration would be given as to whether RE should be included in the national curriculum;

• awareness of the general influence of AI in education;

• awareness that a number of schools reduced their curriculum at KS3¹, introducing GCSEs in Year 9, and that it was not acceptable to drop RE; and,

• awareness that the transition into Year 7 needed to be handled better to reduce repetition.

The SACRE RE Adviser highlighted that this had been a positive reinforcement of the work already being undertaken in Bromley, in which it had been recognised that RE needed to be based around meaningful questions, involving inter-faith dialogue, and this was demonstrated within the Bromley Agreed Syllabus.

The SACRE RE Adviser said that it was a statutory requirement for schools to teach RE to all pupils, but that not all pupils were receiving RE as part of their education. She noted that in a report released by Ofsted in April 2024, findings indicated that fewer than 1/5 schools were compliant at secondary level in providing core RE for every pupil as well as the option of taking RE GCSE, and for those that were, it was usually sub-standard.

Local Updates

The SACRE RE Adviser updated members on the inter-faith calendar competition, the 'London in Conversation with NASACRE' event, and the inter-faith dialogue conference and showcase event.

The inter-faith calendar competition includes dates of both religious and secular festivals, events and celebrations, and schools can use this to support assemblies and inter-faith dialogue. The artwork for the calendar was determined via a borough-wide primary school competition, and the theme this year had been 'a special time/occasion that is important to me'.

Reverend Roger Bristow, Chairman of the SACRE, advised that he had attended the 'London in Conversation with NASACRE' event on 13th March 2025, where the discussion topic for the breakout groups had been the relationship between SACREs and the local authorities, and the engagement of Elected Members. He emphasised that the feedback indicated that Bromley SACRE was doing very well in terms of support from the Local Authority and engagement from Elected Members.

The SACRE RE Adviser informed Members that an inter-faith event had been created to model the pedagogy of the Bromley Agreed Syllabus. This event had been based on the big question 'How did the world and life get here?' and took place in four stages:

• A fully resourced conference introductory/pre-session for teachers to run in schools with the chosen pupils prior to attending the online conference.
• The online interfaith dialogue conference with a panel of speakers from a range of religions and worldviews took place on 11th March 2025.
• A fully resourced reflective session for teachers to run in their schools with pupils who attended the online event.
• The showcase event with SACRE Members at their summer meeting on 18th June 2025, where artwork and other materials from all previous stages of the programme would be showcased.

A SACRE other faiths representative, who had taken part in the event, explained that the panel of speakers had been asked to create a piece of artwork, based on their belief, about how the world began. The range of pictures were shown to the pupils, who then thought about them, had group discussions and could ask the panel of speakers' questions about what the pictures meant to them.

A SACRE teacher representative said that pupils in Years 3 to 6 at her school had participated in the event, and were able to make links between a number of religions and nonreligious worldviews and highlight common values.

The SACRE RE Adviser noted that an e-survey had been undertaken to gather feedback from schools regarding the RE being delivered, and would be taken into consideration as part of the Agreed Syllabus review.

SACRE Action Plan

The SACRE RE Adviser had provided an updated SACRE Action Plan for the period September 2024-September 2025.

Reverend Roger Bristow, Chairman of the SACRE, advised that funding for the SACRE was in place until the end of the current academic year, but that future funding for the SACRE was not yet certain as the funding which the Local Authority received from central government had reduced.

A Member noted that the SACRE was a statutory body that the Local Authority was required to have and should therefore be funded. Laura Compton, LBB Head of Educational Effectiveness, advised that the school improvements grant had not been received by the Local Authority, which had been used to fund the SACRE in recent years, and that the funding should be taken from the Central School Services Block (CSSB).

The SACRE RE Adviser noted that NASACRE and the Department for Education (DfE) had agreed the recommendation that SACREs should receive 1% of the CSSB funding. It was suggested that a letter be drafted from the SACRE to the Director of Education to form part of these discussions.