Agenda item

To receive and comment on the draft SACRE Annual Report 2023-24.

Nadia Nadeem (SACRE Advisor) introduced the item, which presented a final draft of the 2022-23 Annual Report.

Members were advised that by statute, every local authority was required to adopt a Locally Agreed Syllabus (LAS) for Religious Education and to review it every five years.  The previous LB Brent LAS had been in place for some time, but in recent years had been undergoing a rigorous process of review and revision.  In 2021-22, this process was completed successfully and a new LAS for Brent was approved by the Agreed Syllabus Conference on 6th July 2023.  The syllabus was successfully being implemented across schools within the local authority.

SACRE Members considered the various national and local developments concerning the provision of RE.  Their discussions were prompted by the information provided to the SACRE through the regular updates from Teacher Members, the SACRE Adviser and NASACRE briefings.  During 2023-24, SACRE gave particular attention to various areas, such as the embedment of the new Locally Agreed Syllabus and strategies to promote its implementation as well as making it accessible to schools by promoting it through the Head Teachers bulletin.

SACRE explored meaningful ways to engage with the RE Hubs website as a means to build bridges between Brent’s SACRE and Brent’s Multi Faith Forum, in order to support Teachers and schools collectively.  Training opportunities were available for Members of both Brent’s SACRE and Brent’s Multi Faith Forum.  Empowering everyone to effectively engage with schools, thus providing purposeful experiences whereby pupils could engage with religious and non-religious worldviews.

SACRE monitored RE Hubs and NASACRE training uptake and promoted this to SACRE Members for the purpose of executing SACRE roles more efficiently.

Since September 2024, the RE advisor (Nadia Nadeem) had issued newsletters for schools on a half termly basis.  The newsletters provided additional support and guidance for schools and Teachers in delivering a high quality, rich and inclusive RE curriculum with the delivery of RE across schools in Brent also subject to ongoing monitoring involving LA’s school advisors and surveys of both primary and secondary schools.

SACRE regularly reviewed the world religion summaries on the Brent website to ensure that these were reflective of the diverse lived experiences of our Members and local communities.

A ‘Good Practice Network’, for community primary and secondary school subject leaders in RE, continued to run on a termly basis during the 2023-24 academic year.  These sessions were led by Stacey Burman, the RE Consultant supporting the work on the embedment of the agreed syllabus.  Agreed areas of focus were pedagogy and the OFSTED report to ensure schools were meeting the requirements.

There had been no complaints or withdrawals from RE or collective worship and schools with a determination were listed in the report.

The Chair thanked Nadia Nadeem for her report and welcomed questions from the Members with the following points noted:

Members requested to see the monthly newsletters that were sent out to schools every half term.  Nadia Nadeem also asked for any materials from SACRE Members that could be added into the newsletters.  It was suggested that passages about human values could be used in newsletters to educate the reader about different religions and how their overarching beliefs tie in together, especially as Brent was such a diverse borough.

Clarification was alsp provided in relation the determination process for schools in terms of the delivery of collective worship.

Members asked if a welcome pack was available for new SACRE Members.  Member’s attention was drawn to the free online NASACRE training course called ‘So, you’ve joined your local SACRE…’ to help new SACRE Members understand their role, how SACRE works, its statutory responsibilities and how Members make their contribution to SACRE’s work which would be taking place on 24 June 2025 at 6.30-8pm and was free to attend.

In highlighting the value of the work being undertaken by SACRE as detailed within the Annual Report, the Chair thanked Nadia Nadeem for her work in preparing the report and SACRE AGREED to approve the final draft of the 2023-24 Annual Report, subject to any final comments submitted by Members following the meeting.