Agenda item

Cllr Hayat left the meeting during this item.

As part of the development work the 6 AoLE working groups had prepared and produced reports to both the Curriculum and Assessment Group (CAG) and the Independent Advisory Group (IAG) for feedback.  Both groups, along with Welsh Government expert groups, have provided feedback on the work so far as part of the quality enhancement process.

ManonJones  (Curriculum Division of Welsh Government) is responsible for the pioneer schools and two areas of learning and experience (AOLE), Humanities and Language and Literacy. 

As discussed at the previous SACRE meeting the Humanities working group recommendation had been to follow the ‘big ideas’/what matters approach as exemplified within Wynne Harlen et al’s’ Working with Big Ideas in Science. WG is exploring how Humanities will look and how it supports the new curriculum. 

WASACRE and NAPfRE were working closely with WG during this review and WASACRE had drawn up a paper on ‘What Matters in RE’ which was presented at the Humanities Planning Workshops in November 2017.

The WG SACRE newsletter which updated all SACREs of the progress to date and the revised timelines for the curriculum was discussed. 

·          April 2019: Draft curriculum available for feedback               

·          January 2020: Final curriculum available  

·          September 2022: All maintained schools and settings using new curriculum and assessment arrangements (roll-out starting with primary and Year 7 and then year by year)

Initial proposals for the ‘What Matters’ key concepts for the Humanities AoLE had been included with the newsletter.  The proposals reflected the Humanities pioneer group’s thinking. The group will continue to meet every three weeks and have begun developing progression frameworks to underpin each of these ‘What Matters’ statements. 

As SACREs were invited to submit their comments to this paper V Thomas went through the paper highlighting those areas which were RE focussed.  She was pleased to note that there were plenty of opportunities for RE teaching to be relayed and that there was much emphasis on spiritual development.  There was a need for there to be RE specific continuing professional development (CPD) when the programme comes out.  V Thomas will be at the next WG meeting in March and will highlight the importance of CPD in RE and the concern that the cost of future CPD for RE would put pressure on schools’ budgets.   L Picton believed that the training should be incorporated in initial teacher training.

R Penn spoke of the need to ensure that RE does not become ‘humanist’ as it is to be included under humanities. 

There was also concern that RE would become ‘dumbed down’ when incorporated within humanities.  V Thomas reminded everyone that the RE syllabus was agreed by the local authority.  H Vaughan had recently been a member of a group that had met with Professor Donaldson.  She reported that he did deliberate on keeping RE as a separate subject and still meets regularly with the Cabinet Member for Education at WG to address progress on what he feels should be included in RE.

Agreed:

V Thomas to submit comments to WG on behalf of Newport SACRE