Hampshire County Council

SACRE Item 8

6 November 2007

Project on social cohesion in Hampshire

Report of the Director of Children's Services

1

Summary

1.1

This report provides a summary of the progress of the new project to address social cohesion in Hampshire. The purpose of the project is to construct a strategy for addressing social cohesion in relation to community diversity and conditions for effective learning of pupils in schools.

This project supports the following Hampshire County Council priorities:

1.2

"Making Hampshire safer and more secure for all" - by encouraging better and more informed relations between communities and institutions

"Maximising well-being" - by addressing common purpose amongst communities in Hampshire and its children

"Enhancing our quality of place" - through providing support for the positive recognition of minority communities and religious groups.

1.3

The decision supports the following Aims of the Children Act:

(Being healthy; Staying safe; Enjoying and achieving; Making a positive contribution; Economic well-being) by ensuring that social cohesion is addressed in Hampshire and its neighbouring communities to enhance the safety of environments, positive relations between different groups, achievement and enjoyment of children in schools and their larger learning, improving the prospect of economic well-being for minorities of different faiths.

2

Recommendations

That:

SACRE notes the report and endorses the continued developments of the Social Cohesion project.

3

Background

3.1

As a result of the Steering group's plans the project is now underway. In the North of the county a secondary school and one of its feeder primary schools has agreed to participate and meetings have been held with the participating teachers to finalise planning of pupils' activities in relation to the project. Pupils in both those schools represent broad ethnic, religious and cultural diversity in the area. Pupils in those schools are now engaged with the project.

3.2

South of the county pilot. These schools have been twinned with schools in Southampton with diverse ethnic/ religious and cultural intake and teachers of the participating schools have met and planned the development of the project . `Modules' have been constructed on social cohesion and pupils are now involved in an enquiry based module constructed to the Living Difference cycle of learning model. The participating schools have planned to bring the pupils from these schools together in order to learn from each other and report back to their own school in order to initiate change in addressing social cohesion

3.3

There have been training sessions for representatives from faith communities in the south and the north of the county . These sessions have been about the enquiry based model being used with pupils in the project in order to promote understanding of issues involved with social cohesion as well as religious identity (for example pupils can inform faith representatives of how effective engagement and participation can occur and issues that need to be addressed from their perspective).

3.4

The university of Winchester will involve its student trainees in the pilot through making available an optional module and their participation would be across and within its various aspects.

3.5

A conference is planned for 27 March 2008 at which participating schools, participating university students, faith community representatives and parents will be invited to share the findings and responses to the project.

LINK(S) TO CORPORATE STRATEGY

YES

NO

Hampshire safer and more secure for all

_

Maximising well-being

_

Enhancing our quality of place

_

This proposal does not link to the Corporate Strategy but, nevertheless, requires a decision because: