Upcoming Humanist Events

"Para 104 - The inclusion of representatives of belief systems such as humanism, which do not amount to a religion or religious denomination, on committee A of a SACRE [Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education] would be contrary to the legal provisions referred to at paragraph 103".

So, humanists were to be excluded from full membership of a statutory Local Authority Committee (SACRE) and excluded completely from the one which decides on the locally agreed syllabus (ASC)!

A SACRE (Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education) is responsible for advising its Local Authority about Religious Education (and collective worship) in schools.

A few SACREs did not take this advice and retained their humanists as full members - for example Westminster and Oxford. But others, after the Guidance of '94, had their humanists demoted to a non-voting co-opted status.

NEW GUIDANCE
The Government has just published new proposed Guidance on Religious Education (RE) in England and has asked the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) to conduct a public consultation on its behalf.

Mark Chater from QCA, responsible for the consultation on behalf of the government, will be present and in 'listening/consulting mode'.

Your voice can be heard if you come to this meeting !

Many more SACREs in recent times have begun to accept not only that inclusion is a good thing but that there should be equal treatment. They have welcomed people such as our group Secretary, Josh Kutchinsky, as a member with full voting rights. He is the humanist representative as well as Chair of Brent SACRE.

Some SACREs refuse to have Humanism represented by full members and some even to have a representative as a non-voting co-opted member. They say religious education is about religion and that therefore Humanism should not be included!

Come along and find out more - your voice is going to be very important.

To see the proposed guidance go to http://www.qca.org.uk... (note: where it says 'guidance for the teaching of RE' this is meant to read 'guidance for RE' ! There is only one guidance document.

If you had never heard of all this before please wait for this meeting before responding to the consultation.

*PANEL
Roger Butler (RE Consultant, Member of the guidance review steering group))
Andrew Copson (Education and public affairs officer, BHA ,Member of the guidance review steering group)
Josh Kutchinsky (Chair, Brent SACRE,)
Jay Lakhani (Hindu Council of Britain, Member of the guidance review steering group,
Marilyn Mason (BHA Education office before Andrew, Member of the guidance review steering group))
Peter Ward (Education Officer (Secondary), Diocese of Westminster Education Service,Member of the guidance review steering group)
and others.

This event is provisionally set to be held at RADA