Agenda item

Report of the Director of Children and Adult Services

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

The Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education has a duty to review their Locally Agreed Syllabus every 5 years, and this was now a year overdue as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

It was agreed at the meeting of the Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education held on 8 February 2021 to commence the review process and convene an Agreed Syllabus Conference (ASC) to progress and it was noted that any update to the Darlington syllabus (if agreed) would be unlikely to be released to schools after January 2022 at the earliest.

As part of the recommended consultation process with all schools, Anne Davison, SEND and Inclusion Advisor advised the ASC that a survey had been circulated to all schools on 18 May, 2021 to be completed on Survey Monkey to gather school views, especially those of Head Teachers, subject governors and RE Teachers. The results of the questionnaires (also previously circulated) were reviewed at the meeting and it was noted that 67.86 per cent of responses agreed that the current syllabus required changed which showed that there was an appetite for the production of a new syllabus.

Martin Stand, representative of the Church of England requested that the results be broken down into Secondary and Primary schools as he felt that the contexts were quite different and the responses appeared to be primarily from the primary schools.

Members agreed to look at this in further detail at the next meeting and also to discuss further the high percentage of responses which requested more online resources and lesson plans.

Anne Davison advised Members that she would present a number of options at the next meeting of the ASC for Members consideration.

IT WAS AGREED – To convene a further meeting of the Agreed Syllabus Conference to consider the options for a revised Syllabus.

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