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AGM 2014
Rising to the Challenge
Thank you to SACRE colleagues who have sent us their presentations. These are now available to read or download from the website.
Joint conference
Our chair, Lesley Prior writes:
NASACRE would like to announce that there will be a one day conference on Thursday 27th November 2014 jointly hosted with AREIAC (Association of RE Advisers, Inspectors and Consultants) and AULRE (Association of University Lecturers in RE). Please keep this date free in your diary.
The focus of the day will be a valuable and important opportunity to highlight the implications for RE and collective worship following the Trojan Horse affair and the investigation into some schools in Birmingham. The day will include workshops on collective worship, as well as explorations of the new Ofsted framework and GCSE criteria.
The Conference will take place in Birmingham at the Ibis Hotel, Birmingham Centre, 21 Ladywell Walk, Arcadian Centre, Birmingham, B5 4ST.
The event will start at 11.45 am and will finish at 5.30pm so you should be able to arrange cheap, off-peak travel. Lunch will be provided.
More details and a booking form will be available as soon as possible.
I hope to see you at the conference and that the term goes well for you and your SACRE.
The RE Council and NATRE have carried out a very useful analysis of A Level and GCSE Religious Studies results.
Their findings for A Level indicate the subject 'is great preparation for university’.
With regards to GCSE, they suggest that 'urgent action' is needed to curb a decline in the numbers entered for RS.
Inter Faith Week
Inter Faith Week 2014 is 16-22 November.
Michael Metcalf, NASACRE’s lead representative on the Council of the Inter Faith Network (UK) writes:
IF Week has become an established feature of the calendar of nationwide events, and has steadily increased in its scope and significance, and in its capacity to involve a wide range of people and groups, since its beginning in 2009. This year, the Week will be launched at a high profile meeting in London on 13th November, at which NASACRE will have a presence.
SACREs are recommended to study the recent IFN Report Inter Faith Week: Celebrating 2013 and planning for 2014. This Report gives emphasis to the value of involving young people in IF Week, and highlights a concern to promote more inter-generational activities. In collaboration with local IF groups, SACREs are well placed to respond to these themes, especially perhaps those SACREs that are able to sponsor youth SACREs/forums/councils. The Report also gives a useful list of tips and ideas for IF Week.
Possibly relevant to the emphasis on young people, the Report notes the increased use of Twitter in IF Week 2013, tweeting as @IFWeek, and encourages the use of the hashtag #IFWeek. It would be useful to learn how far SACREs are engaging with social media such as Twitter, in general as well as in relation to IF Week.
The Professional Development Committee of the RE Council, and NATRE, have jointly published an RE exemplification of the 2013 DfE Teacher standards. This is a support tool to help individual teachers interpret the DfE standards, and could be used for self-audit or in the context of professional development. The exemplification material illustrates the particular RE applications of the general standards, and also refers to further helpful sources of information such as the RE Council’s Code of Conduct and Practice for Teachers of RE, as well as the RE Quality Mark awards criteria. Though not a statement of a statutory requirement, the exemplification is something teachers can use as they wish to support their own development.
Learning Outside the Classroom (LOtC)
In RE, Learning Outside the Classroom (LOtC) experiences provide opportunities for:
engagement with faith communities
spiritual, moral, social and cultural development
visits to places of worship and other spaces, both religious and non-religious
young people to ask big questions or reflect
The RE Council has a new LOtC area on its website. It has two sections:
RE trails which can be used or adapted together with a toolkit to enable teachers to create their own trails
Sacred Spaces - a series of case studies providing some inspiring examples of compelling learning experiences that have taken place across the country, and beyond.
Your next SACRE agenda
20+ ideas for SACREs to consider. These emanated from the AGM and conference held in May (see above) and can also be accessed from the Your next agenda section of the website.
RE Regional Strategy Pilot This strategy to ensure that there are more robust arrangements for training and supporting teachers of RE is based on Recommendation 4 of the RE Council’s Review of Religious Education. The RE Council and NATRE working in collaboration with Culham St Gabriel’s are implementing a pilot version of the strategy which they hope will help teachers of RE to develop a regional strategy in their own area, adapted and suited to their own professional development priorities. Culham’s St Gabriel’s is currently inviting expressions of interest. Click on the link above for further details and to download the expression of interest form.
RE Expert Advisory Group (EAG)
The above link provides information on:
- Introducing the RE Expert Advisory Group
- What is the remit of the RE EAG?
- Who are the members of the RE EAG?
- How has the RE EAG begun its work?
The theme for Holocaust Memorial Day 2015 is Keep the memory alive. Read the theme vision.
27 January 2015 marks the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. 2015 will also be the 20th anniversary of the Genocide in Srebrenica, Bosnia. Therefore it is particularly appropriate that the theme for this major anniversary year focuses on memory.
A series of free workshops are being held across the UK for people interested in organising an HMD activity.
Resources to support the theme will be launched on September 15th.
SACRE Annual Reports
Thank you to those SACREs who have already submitted reports for the year 2012-13.
Please email your SACRE report as one document in PDF format with a maximum size of approx 3Mb to: memsec@nasacre.org.uk
