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Agenda and minutes

Venue: Siambr Dafydd Orwig, Council Offices, Caernarfon, Gwynedd, LL55 1SH. View directions

Contact: Glynda O'Brien  01341 424301 Email: glyndaobrien@gwynedd.llyw.cymru

Items
No. Item

1.

PRAYER

Minutes:

The meeting was commenced with a prayer by Mr Cynrig Hughes. 

2.

ELECTION OF CHAIRMAN

To elect a Chairman for this Committee for 2017/18.

 

Minutes:

Resolved:        To elect Councillor Paul J. Rowlinson as Chair of the committee for 2017/18.

 

3.

ELECTION OF VICE-CHAIRMAN

To elect a Vice-chairman for this committee for 2016/17.

 

Minutes:

Resolved:          To elect Councillor Elin Walker Jones as Vice-chair of this

Committee for 2017/18.   

 

4.

APOLOGIES

To receive any apologies for absence.

Minutes:

Apologies were received from Cllr. Mike Stevens, Dr. Gwyn Lewis  (Union of Welsh Baptists), Eirian Bradley-Roberts (The Catholic Church), Alwen Watkin, Heledd Jones (Teacher Unions)

 

5.

DECLARATION OF PERSONAL INTEREST

To receive any declaration of personal interest.

Minutes:

No declarations of personal interest were received from any members present.

6.

URGENT ITEMS

To note any items that are a matter of urgency in the view of the Chairman

for consideration.

 

Minutes:

There were no urgent items.

7.

MINUTES pdf icon PDF 248 KB

The Chairman shall propose that the minutes of the meeting of SACRE held

on 9 March 2017 be signed as a true copy.

 

(Copy enclosed)

 

Minutes:

The Chairman signed the minutes of the meeting of this Committee held on 9 March 2017, as a true record.

 

8.

SCHOOLS' SELF-EVALUATION pdf icon PDF 265 KB

(a) To receive, for information, the monitoring form in respect of

schoolsself-evaluation for the Spring to Summer 2017 period.

 

(Copy enclosed)

 

(b) To present a summary of the following schoolsself-evaluation:

 

 

(i)         Ysgol Glan y Môr, Pwllheli

(ii)        Ysgol Talysarn

(iii)       Ysgol Bro Hedd Wyn

(iv)       Ysgol Llanllyfni

(v)        Ysgol Bro Tegid

 

(Copies enclosed)

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

(a)   The Assistant Education Quality Improvement Officer guided Members through the handout circulated in which a summary of school findings was set out, drawing attention to the fact that five primary schools and one secondary school had been inspected by ESTYN during the 2017 Spring term.

 

(b)              Members were guided through the self-evaluations of the schools of Ysgol Glan y Môr, Bro Hedd Wyn, Llanllyfni and Bro Tegid. 

 

The GwE Challenge Adviser praised Gwynedd schools for their readiness to share their self-evaluations of religious education and collective worship, and emphasised that monitoring the standard of religious education was one of Gwynedd SACRE's responsibilities. It was explained that they sought to accept the self-evaluations from schools during the inspection term or shortly thereafter.  As religious studies was not a national curriculum subject, it can be seen from the self-evaluations that the schools were fulfilling the requirements of the Cytûn syllabus which was produced locally by the SACRE.

From the self-evaluations presented, it was seen that the schools had deemed that the standards and the education provisions were good and the collective worship was meeting statutory requirements.  Ysgol Llanllyfni's self-evaluation was presented based on work conducted over a long period of time, but reference was made to ESTYN's recent inspection report which noted that the provision in key stage 2 was fully meeting the agreed syllabus.  The school would be producing an an action plan in order to tackle the work and it was hoped that SACRE would see an improvement will along with examples of work in October.

Reference was made to improvement issues that were noted by the schools: 

·         Ysgol Glan y Môr was eager to help boys to achieve improved standards in religious studies by developing literacy, reading and writing.

·         Ysgol Talysarn was eager to ensure that pupils could demonstrate progress by studying various religions; ensuring that religious education was scrutinised regularly by the School's Curriculum Panel

·         Ysgol Bro Hedd Wyn was eager to ensure that the Foundation Phase received a broader and richer experience

In response to an enquire regarding SACRE monitoring arrangements, the Challenge Adviser explained that this is carried out as follows:

·         Scrutinise external results in October or in the Spring meeting

·         Browse through inspection reports

·         Invite schools to present self-evaluations by ensuring that the content is evaluative and quantitative

·         Invite schools to give presentations on the work completed in the classroom

In terms of collective worship, it was explained that was was conducted daily, but that there is no requirement for a mass Assembly, it can be conducted in classes and there was no specific time for it.  In accordance with the Act, the sessions must mainly be Christian and schools were requested to be sensitive to other religions.  It was explained that parents had a right to exempt their children from collective worship as they had the right to exempted them from religious education classes.  Schools had a right to conduct Christian collective worship, but from a religious education perspective, it was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

9.

PRESENTATIONS

To receive presentations by representatives from various schools on good practice / concerns on delivering Religious Education.

 

 

Minutes:

(a)              The Challenge Adviser explained that she had invited the four following teachers to give a presentation to the Committee on the work of religious studies in the key stages:

 

Nia Hughes, Ysgol Talysarn                  -           Foundation Phase

Heulwen Jones, Ysgol Bro Hedd Wyn  -           KS2

Miriam Amlyn                                         -           KS3

Heledd Jones                                         -           KS4

 

but unfortunately, due to confusion and error about location, only two teachers were present.

 

(b)              Nia Hughes from Ysgol Talysarn, Foundation Phase Teacher who was responsible for teaching religious studies to the Nursery, Reception, Year 1 and 2 classes, was welcomed.  An interesting presentation was received, and good examples were seen of the work that was done in Ysgol Talysarn based on language, experience, empathy, morning assemblies etc.  

 

It was noted that the Foundation Phase required teachers to have significant skills which were to follow the child, decide upon different areas in the classroom, which ere all based on their experiences.

 

In response to an enquiry from an individual member, she noted that it was very rare for nursery children to have knowledge of biblical stories when they began at the school, and that the school did not work with the Church or Chapel in Talysarn. She added that it was challenging for some schools that were eager to use local resources as it was not always easy if the communities did not have many places of worship or were not faith communities.     

           

 

The Member noted, when looking at future education arrangements in the Bangor area, that it might be an idea for the Committee to give input into the discussions so that any new school would be inclusive from the perspective of taking the faith backgrounds of Bangor's population into account.  

 

(c)      Miriam Amlyn from Ysgol Eifionydd (who was a member of SACRE as a representative for the NASUWT Union) was welcomed to share information about cross-curriculum presentation as a Head of Department of Religious Education. 

 

She noted that the situation was slightly different in the secondary sector as the subject was presented for an hour a week in KS3, but varied from school to school and the pupils experiences differed, but, on the whole a regular academic lesson was presented teaching about religion. 

 

A unit of work completed with Year 7 on the subject of Hinduism was seen, which had then been developed into a series of lessons about worship, worshipping and the buildings. Stemming from this work, 85 pupils created a film and an example was shown to the Committee.  Attention was drawn to the fact that there was an emphasis in the secondary sector, as in the primary sector, on developing work which can develop cross-curricular skills (literacy, numeracy and digital competence) and the teachers successfully collaborated in order for the work to correctly intertwine and contribute towards religious education. 

 

Resolved:                      To accept, note and congratulate the teachers for the interesting presentation and thank them for their work and dedication to the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

10.

WALES SACRE ASSOCIATION pdf icon PDF 412 KB

(a)          To receive the draft minutes of the Wales SACRE Association’s

meeting held on the 3 March 2017.  

 

 

(Copy enclosed)

 

(b) To consider nominations for the Executive Committee of

WASACRE.

 

(Copy enclosed)

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

(a) Minutes of the previous meeting

 

The draft minutes of the previous Association meeting, held on 3 March 2017, were submitted.

 

It was noted that the above Association's next meeting would be held on 7 July 2017 in Wrexham and that Gwynedd SACRE had the right to nominate one representative from amongst the Elected Members, one representative from amongst the denominations and one representative from amongst the teachers, to attend this meeting.

 

(b)          Nominations for the Wales Association of SACRE's Executive Committee were submitted.

 

 

Resolved:                      (a) To accept and note the contents of the minutes.

 

                                       (b) To note that the Association's next meeting will be held on 23 June 2016 in Rhyl.   

 

(c) To request that the GwE Challenge Adviser votes on behalf of Gwynedd SACRE as follows:

 

Executive Committee: Gill Vaisey

                                       Alison Lewis

 

Vice-chair          Gill Vaisey