Agenda item

Proposal to Recommend to the Local Authority the Need to Review the Locally Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education

Report of the Director of Children and Adult Services

Minutes:

The Director of Children and Adult Services submitted a report (previously circulated) to give consideration to a review of the Locally Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education.

 

It was reported that every five years a local authority has to review its agreed syllabus for religious education and in order to do this it must establish an Agreed Syllabus Conference (ASC) whose role it is to produce and recommend an Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education which meets fully the present legislative requirements and is educationally sound.

 

It was also reported that only an Agreed Syllabus Conference may recommend an Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education and its recommendations must be unanimously agreed by the representative committees constituting the Agreed Syllabus Conference; and the current Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education was approved by this local authority at a meeting of Cabinet held on 7 April 2015 and due to the Covid-19 pandemic, meetings of SACRE were unable to take place during Spring/Summer 2020 to commence the process of review any sooner.

 

Members of the SACRE discussed the suggestion to under a review and agreed that it was an appropriate time to consider a review and to take into account the most recent Ofsted guidance for GCSE/ AS and A Levels; and to give consideration to the final report of the Commission for Religious Education ‘Religion and World Views – The Way Forward’.

 

IT WAS AGREED – That this SACRE recommend that the local authority commence the review process and convene an Agreed Syllabus Conference to progress.

 

 

Supporting documents: