Hampshire County Council

SACRE Item 9

4 November 2008

Project on community cohesion in Hampshire

Report of the Director of Children's Services

1

Summary

1.1

This report provides an update of the developments into the second year of the pilot project to address social/community cohesion in Hampshire. The project has enabled the construction of 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/Community Cohesion project into its second year .

3

Background

3.1

Following the very successful conference held on 27^th March 2008 which was hosted and funded by Aimhigher at Winchester University, there have been requests for presentations about the project at various meetings both locally and nationally. The pupils and students involved have made those presentations where possible, but for venues further afield, Clive Erricker, the project leader, has made the presentations.

The project activities and findings have been presented to Hampshire County Council members, a community cohesion conference in London with another booked for November and the National Association of SACRE's meeting in London. There are plans to make presentations for Governor training throughout 2009-10.

3.2

A CD of the conference following the first year of the project has been produced by David Bond from the Winchester Archives department, who supported the participating schools (available from David by contacting him on [email protected] ). The report of the conference and the first year of the project has been sent to all Hampshire schools as a schools communication.

3.3

The report of the first year of the project was presented and ratified by Education Members on Decision Day on 22 May 2008 . The social/community cohesion project will continue until the end of March 2009.

3.4

All the schools involved in the first year of the project are continuing into the second year. A number of other schools have expressed interest and are involved in the second year of development .

3.5

Invitations have been sent to faith representatives in Hampshire inviting them to attend training on the concept led enquiry approach to pupils' learning. This is the methodology of the agreed syllabus, Living Difference, which facilitated pupils' learning throughout the project and which will inform the second year of the enquiry.

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: