Agenda item

Report of the Director for Children and Families

The SACRE considered the report which covered the main issues affecting Religious Education (RE) in Staffordshire since the last meeting. Further to the written report, the following information was provided:

Continuous Professional Development

Entrust have approached Mary Gale to run face to face courses to provide network support for teachers. The autumn course is book for 22 November 2022, and to date 28 schools have booked onto this course.

Governors continue to receive updates on RE, the status of the Agreed Syllabus (AS) and the process for the review through the “Governor Information Pack”. Governors had also been encouraged to discuss the impact of the current AS. This information had reached 300 plus schools and over 200 leaders from these school joined an update webinar where RE was discussed as part and parcel of the information provided.

Update on RE Quality Mark application- St Chad’s Pattingham

The SACRE heard that St Chad’s Pattingham had received the SACRE grant to enable them to apply for this quality mark. The RE lead was working through the requirements collecting evidence for the virtual assessment. Mary Gale had supported the school to ensure they had a strong evidence base before the assessment. The school is awaiting its assessment date.

Westhill Legacy project- Explore, Engage, Reflect (EER) in conjunction with Youth Net.

The SACRE were reminded that funding had been provided for this project from the 2022-2023 budget through commissioning the Entrust Minority Ethnic Achievement Service (MEAS) to deliver workshops in conjunction with Youth Net. There had been a delay in the release of money from the SACRE budget, but this had now been released and dates for the Spring term 2023 support had been arranged.

Work force data for 2021

The workforce data is a database of statistics provided by schools indicating how many hours are taught on each subject matter – this primarily affects each Middle and High schools. Of the schools in Staffordshire there has been an improvement of hours spent on religious education in high schools in comparison to the last figures provided.

Standards

The SACRE heard that the GCSE system continued to use the new grading of 9-1, with 9 being the exceptional grade. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the summer exam series for the 2019/2020 academic year was cancelled for all schools in the UK and grades were awarded following a different process in Central Assessed Grades (CAGs). This continued into the 2020/21 academic year where they became Teacher Assessed Grades (TAGs). Exams resumed with some modifications in 2022. This led to a large increase in the share of top grades. Historical data was provided to demonstrate Staffordshire’s Religious Studies GCSE performance (achieving grades 9 to 4) against the national average. The table below shows the figures.

The SACRE heard that, in England, the number of Religious Studies A-level exam entries in 2021 had increased by 6.1%. The subject had outperformed other A-level subjects, which increased by 5.1%, with a greater increase than most other humanities subjects - these results reversed the decline of 11.5% in 2020. It was noted, however, that the data provided suggested that only 53 pupils had sat a Religious Studies exam in Staffordshire. This number was being challenged and confirmation was awaited.

Resolved: That the report be noted.