The Brent Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education (SACRE) met on Thursday 9 October 2025 to discuss its core responsibilities, elect a vice chair, and receive Religious Education (RE) related updates. The meeting was scheduled to include a presentation on the role of Brent SACRE, as well as consideration of updates from the National Association of SACREs (NASACRE).

Election of Vice Chair

The meeting was scheduled to include the annual election of the SACRE Vice Chair. Councillors were informed that Brent Council had agreed not to exercise its right to appoint the Vice Chair, meaning that the appointment would be agreed by SACRE. The appointment was scheduled to be for the 2025-26 academic year, with future elections taking place at the last SACRE meeting of each preceding academic year.

SACRE's Core Responsibilities

The role of Brent SACRE was scheduled to be presented by Nadia Nadeem, SACRE Advisor, and Helen Tulloch. A document in the report pack titled SACRE Role Function and Good Practice outlined the legal and statutory basis of SACRE, stating that SACREs are constituted under the Education Act 1996, Section 375, and that their role is to advise the local authority on matters relating to Religious Education and collective worship in schools.

The document also listed SACRE's core roles and responsibilities:

• Advisory role to the local authority
• Monitoring and evaluation
• Support and guidance
• Reviewing / recommending agreed syllabus changes
• Agreed Syllabus Conference (ASC)
• Annual reporting
• Public meetings & transparency
• Co-option & representation
• Encouraging community / interfaith dialogue
• Complaint / redress

NASACRE Update

The SACRE Advisor was scheduled provide an update on NASACRE. The report pack included a NASACRE Updates document, which stated that NASACRE had been registered as a charity on 11 March 2025, and that a new constitution had been adopted.

The document also noted that NASACRE had released an updated SACRE Handbook in July 2025, which clarifies the distinction between statutory obligations and advisory guidance, and incorporates guidance on inclusion of non-religious worldview representation.

General RE Update

The SACRE Advisor was scheduled to provide a general update on SACRE and RE related issues.

Minutes of the Previous Meeting

The minutes from the last SACRE meeting held on Tuesday 22 July 2025 were included in the report pack.

During the previous meeting, SACRE Minutes 22.07.25 members agreed to appoint Bhupinder Bhasin as the new Chair of Brent SACRE. It was also agreed that the appointment of a Vice-Chair would be considered at the next meeting.

SACRE also considered six determination applications from Fryent Primary School, Kingsbury Green Primary School, Leopold Primary School, Park Lane School, Roe Green Junior School and Wykeham Primary School. It was agreed that the determinations be granted pending the submission of outstanding supporting information from Fryent Primary School and Leopold Primary School, and confirmation of approval from representatives of the Membership Group C (Teaching Association).

Nadia Nadeem, SACRE Advisor, provided an update on teaching a decolonised RE curriculum, the use of AI in the RE curriculum, and its impact in relation to questions around ethics, empathy and compassion.

The Chair mentioned the partition of India and later Bangladesh and of the community affected by this. The Chair was involved in the making of a film called Children of Partition: An Oral History of Pothoharis, which can be viewed at https://youtu.be/IrCee1d0CUM?si=j9D-KHowIAQKMref. The Chair is the president of a group called Pothohar Association UK, which bought all faiths together to discuss issues relating to the Partition.