Hosting a Curriculum Symposium

I have been the Secondary Advisor to Somerset Council for nearly two years and this is my first advisory post. I work alongside with Somerset’s Primary advisor and our council representative. My job is varied and requires all sorts of creativity from me. I advise the SACRE, which means being up to date with local needs and national matters, such as policy changes and shifts in the subject. I connect a great many people together: teachers of all key stages, RE Hub leaders and faith representatives. I also provide training and advise the team who are responsible for the locally Agreed Syllabus. In this latter capacity we have begun to review our Agreed Syllabus. We are considering our current syllabus and whether it needs to evolve to reflect new developments nationally. When we started talking and thinking about the new Agreed Syllabus we had two aims. Firstly, to ensure and improve connections between SACRE members and RE teachers so teachers have support they need. Secondly, we wanted to ensure teachers are aware of the key changes happening in the subject at a national level. We were inspired to create, produce and host a curriculum symposium after NATRE’s curriculum symposium (November 2021). NATRE even provide guidance for running such an event, their website suggesting the ‘what’ and ‘why’. How could we refuse! As this process started, we realised the development of the curriculum was the primary aim of the advisory service, because it enables us to empower teachers with up- to -date knowledge, skills and understanding. Through my year on Culham St Gabriel’s Leadership Programme I had met many influential RE people who were excited by the prospect of taking part. I secured some amazing speakers – Dawn Cox, Gillian Georgiou, Sophie Smith and Alice Thomas who led our teachers in employing a multi-disciplinary approach in a religion and worldviews curriculum. The aim of the curriculum symposium was to:

1. Create a supportive network of Somerset RE teachers across all phases
2. Engage Somerset RE teachers with developments to the subject at a national level
3. Bring Somerset RE teachers into conversations about our new Agreed Syllabus

The teacher feedback was tremendous. Almost all showed extremely high levels of enjoyment and satisfaction. We had a fantastic time and felt we connected to many teachers, which we look forward to working with. We know we met our aims. Locating teachers’ contact details across the whole county was hard, as was promoting and communicating the event. We wanted as many teachers as possible, so we had to learn how to navigate social media successfully. However, it was well worth the effort, and now we have a strong network of contacts. Now we have the connections, I am incredibly excited to work with SACRE and teachers to develop our present Agreed Syllabus and to further improve the quality of teaching and learning for students in Somerset. I would thoroughly recommend putting on a curriculum symposium to other advisors. It was hard at times, but also exciting, and the benefits for long-term creative development and empowered, knowledgeable teachers will be far-reaching. Reference: Advancing Education: Curriculum Symposium Projects | NATRE