EP shared a presentation on National content standard for Religious Education and explained the need for having one.

·         There is no benchmark for RE in England

·         The quality of RE curriculum varies widely from school to school

·         Academy Trusts, SACREs and others planning RE curriculum need to work to a standard

·         To provide opportunities for :

o   The positive recognition of high quality RE

o   Holding to account, those not providing pupils with their entitlement

EP shared some examples of how schools nationally are teaching RE syllabus differently and with a different approach. The amount of time being spent varies too, especially in different year groups. Therefore, there is a need for having a standardised approach for teaching RE. The local authority agreed syllabus gives that standard but as most schools are academies now, they don't feel bound to follow it. In the absence of a national curriculum in RE, a more generic statement, which talks about the concepts, ethics and themes is needed. He added that the content standard guides us in this regard. It has an element, which looks at the nature, formation and expression of religions. This also talks about values, relationships, customs, traditions and world views. It also talks about leadership, communities, beliefs and practises and how people from a particular group or religion practice the religion or faith differently.

EP stated that we're starting to get the national stakeholders in RE to be able to say this is how we need to be able to judge RE. He added that a wide variety of organisations, associations, trusts and academics have signed up to this.

EP also highlighted that we need to be aware of the bigger picture of how RE is shifting and changing nationally. A final version of original Worldviews Handbookwill be published in May 2024. This is for syllabus writers. We've decided to renew our syllabus before this work has been published.

AF suggested if SACRE could engage with school governors to learn and share from our experiences and for getting something positive as they have a significant role in schools.

Chair agreed with this suggestion and promised to look into this suggestion.

CW and JR commented that it will be more useful if governor’s engagement is on strategic level and not on operational level.

On school monitoring data, EP shared slides from the Schools Workforce Survey based on DFE’s data. School have to fill in School Workforce Survey every year that allows DfE to collect information on what subjects are taught in schools in different year groups by percentages. This enables us to see how much RE schools are doing by each year group. It has been a national expectation since the early 1990’s that RE should be approximately 5% of the curriculum. EP said that this data gives him bases for having a constructive discussion with schools in Plymouth and he has been in contact with some schools already.

In a response to a question from CW, EP replied that most schools don't teach RE if they have a post 16 cohort therefore he will not be exploring RE in post 16 years but will instead have a light touch conversation with schools.

DJB enquired if St Boniface’s RE curriculum is focused on Catholicism. KW replied that they teach their religions too with a main focus on Catholicism.

CSC and other members highlighted that some schools are not on the list. EP will explore.

CS commented that schools should be addressing RE related issues in a structured way rather than from staff’s personal experiences and judgements.

GH stated that Coombe Dean have just appointed a head of RE and the school is going to have an improvement and uplift in that uptake from September next year. She added that Plymstock and Hele’s teach substantially more RE, particularly across key stage 3 than the figures shown on the report.

EP also shared the exams and attainment data in Plymouth schools. Members commented that there may be a number of factors behind low scores in a particular school and as such RE should not be directly compared with other popular subjects. In addition, the uptake of RE varies significantly across the City due to socio-economic and demographic reasons.

EP confirmed that the published version of the annual report will not have school data in it.