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Cheshire ’s Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education (SACRE) was established in 1989 as required by the 1988 Education Reform Act.
It is composed of four representative groups:
- Christian denominations, other than Church of England, and representatives of other faiths
- the local Church of England
- teachers’ associations
- County Councillors
The SACRE meets three times a year and now publishes on this website its minutes and annual report.
Religious Education
RE is not part of the National Curriculum but must be taught in schools by law. The syllabus has to be produced locally and is known as the agreed syllabus. Cheshire's agreed syllabus is currently being reviewed.
The SACRE’s duties
SACREs are responsible in law for advising local education authorities on RE teaching and collective worship. It can
require the LA to review its agreed syllabus for RE. If this is required then the LA must constitute an Agreed Syllabus Conference to undertake this. This involves the same groupings as a SACRE.
consider requests from schools to lift the legal requirement to hold an act of collective worship of a broadly Christian character.
Cheshire SACRE’s aims
- to promote a high quality agreed syllabus
- to help teachers and schools to raise standards in RE and the quality of RE teaching
- to help schools improve the quality of collective worship
- to contribute towards social cohesion, particularly in respect of improving religious and racial harmony within the community
Cheshire’s SACRE
Meets in a variety of venues including County Hall, schools and places of worship (and has met in Chester Cathedral and a Hindu temple).
The covers of the last three annual reports feature designs by pupils. In June 2004 the SACRE chose the winning entries in a competition for primary pupils who used ICT to create their design. Two poems on Diversity, written by high school pupils, were chosen for the inside covers.
The National Association of SACREs was founded to maximise the effectiveness of SACREs and help them carry out their responsibilities.
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