Issue - meetings

            The Committee considered a) a report from the SACRE Advisor setting out a draft toolkit for evaluating collective worship, which had been deferred from the last meeting, b) a toolkit produced by South Gloucestershire Council and SACRE to evaluate Social, Moral, Spiritual and Cultural Development (SMSC) of pupils to inform the School Evaluation Form (SEF), and c) the final results of a survey of Secondary Schools conducted by Andrew Fleet on their provision of Collective Worship and Religious Education.

            The SACRE agreed that the draft toolkit provided by the SACRE Advisor, was a good starting point to enable schools to begin to evaluate and improve collective worship.  It was suggested that two or three schools could be approached to pilot the form to see if it is helpful and could provide background evidence to support completing the SEF.  Emma McCarthy confirmed that she was planning to use the form to assist with evaluating collective worship at Haydon Leigh Primary School and was happy to report back on its use. 

            Gill Ilic suggested that if the SACRE was looking to improve the form, it could be amended to ask for an evaluation of the ‘impact’ of delivering Collective Worship.  It was recognised that this was difficult to measure, and in many cases impact could be long term.  However, it suggested that schools’ assessments of impact could be carried out via pupil feedback, and through describing the types of behaviour and moral development that might be expected to result from the delivery of successful Collective Worship, and evaluate against that model.   

            It was agreed that an incremental approach be adopted by the SACRE to developing the support for Collective Worship.  It was considered that the Gloucester document for evaluating SMSC was too advanced an approach at this time, but could be revisited in the future.

            The SACRE reviewed the detailed survey of Secondary School's provision of religious education and collective worship.  It was agreed that a summary of output of this survey should be reflected in the SACRE's Annual Report.  It was noted that a significant number of schools were using the RE short course, and the SACRE needed to take time to consider how this might impact on the way in which the SACRE supports schools, and what other lessons should be learnt for the SACRE's role from the research.

            Resolved – (1) The SACRE Advisor make minor revisions to the Toolkit to clarify issues raised by SACRE, including giving opportunity for description of the impact in the comments section, and arrange to pilot the toolkit in 2-3 schools. 

            (2) That further to (1) the toolkit be revised in response to the pilot, and if appropriate, reported back to the SACRE.  (Gill Ilic, Paul Knight and Wendy Tucker offered to assist the SACRE Advisor with the revision of the toolkit following consultation).

            (3) That the survey of secondary schools provision of collective worship and religious education be considered further by SACRE members, to understand the implications for the support provided by  ...  view the full minutes text for item 14