Agenda item

To receive a presentation regarding Welsh Government’s Professional Learning Playlist for Religion, Values and Ethics.

·         Welsh Medium Playlist - https://hwb.gov.wales/repository/resource/eef7e399-93bb-4d7c-ab68-145c93f4c6d3

·         English Medium Playlist - https://hwb.gov.wales/repository/resource/eef7e399-93bb-4d7c-ab68-145c93f4c6d3

The RE Adviser gave a presentation regarding Welsh Government’s Professional Learning Playlist for Religion, Values and Ethics, via a web link to the Hwb website.

Members were advised that Welsh Government had recently published professional learning resources to support teachers and senior leaders’ understanding and planning for Religion, Values and Ethics (RVE), and the purpose of the presentation was to aid members’ understanding of the requirements and planning implications of RVE on schools, and to raise awareness of those resources within schools, etc.

During the presentation members were shown how to access the professional learning page which focused on five modules relevant to a variety of stakeholders: (1) Early Years, (2) Primary Schools, (3) Secondary Settings, (4) Additional Learning Needs, and (5) Headteachers.  For the purposes of the presentation, members were guided through the Headteachers Playlist.

Areas covered as part of the Headteachers Playlist included –

·       Welcome – to provide support with the changes to RVE within the Curriculum for Wales and transition to a new way of thinking, planning and delivering RVE

·       Critical Engagement – provision of case studies and examples to offer inspiration and ideas for planning for individual school settings

·       Aims – to develop a greater understanding of the changes to RVE to support the approach to implementing changes in specific school settings

·       detailed the main changes arising from the Curriculum and Assessment (Wales) Act 2021 as it related to RE and RVE and what had stayed the same

·       Self-Evaluation – provided the opportunity to undertake a self-evaluation

·       Quiz – members took part in an interactive quiz to test their knowledge

·       Implications – detailed the implications relating to the curriculum design model; staff; communicating to stakeholders, and conversations with parents who may be concerned that there was no right to withdraw their child from RVE

·       Summary – provided a summary of the key points and things to consider.

Members welcomed the comprehensive resource material provided which would be a valuable support for practitioners, and agreed that a letter of commendation be sent to the authors of the material in that regard.

There was further discussion on the conversations with parents who may be concerned that there was no right to withdraw their child from RVE, and implications of the staggered roll out of the removal of the right to withdraw, given that a child may be withdrawn from RE but not RVE.  The RE Adviser indicated that he had already been contacted by one school seeking advice in that regard and also reported on work to be carried out in collaboration with WASACRE, NAPfRE and the Welsh Government on producing some formal guidance in the future.  However, it was noted that those concerns and conversations were current and it was agreed that some guidance/bullet points be developed in the interim with a view to providing early support in addressing those issues and concerns.  Any subsequent formal guidance issued by the Welsh Government would naturally supersede the interim guidance produced by Denbighshire.  To that end, it was agreed that the RE Adviser and Principal Education Manager, together with representatives from the two Dioceses and school representatives, work together with a view to formulating that interim guidance for Denbighshire’s schools.

RESOLVED that –

(a)      the presentation by the RE Adviser be received;

(b)      members to make schools they are connected to aware of the professional learning resources;

(c)      a commendation letter be sent to the authors of the learning resources on the excellent material provided and its value to the education sector, and

(d)      the RE Adviser to work with the Principal Education Manager together with representatives from the Church in Wales Diocese (Jennie Downes) and Roman Catholic Diocese (Colette Owen) and school representatives (Susan Williams, and the school who had sought advice on the matter) with a view to formulating guidance on the removal of the right to withdraw from RVE.