This article has been brought to you by Slough Borough Council's Senior School Effectiveness Officer, Jo Curd, on behalf of The Revd Stephen Terry, Chair of the Accord Coalition. This is for the attention of all schools.
Each year the Accord Inclusivity Award rewards schools that work hardest to promote an inclusive ethos and advance the growth of mutual understanding, especially on the grounds of religion and ethnicity. I am writing to you in your capacity as a support officer to the Slough Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education to ask if your SACRE could commend the 2021 Inclusivity Award to a local school that does most to promote these aims?
Former Award winners have displayed a wide range of high quality and thoughtful work, with most having excelled at RE and with many having had the Award commended to them by their SACRE. Some have been rewarded specifically because of their RE provision. For example, the third place school in the 2020 Award, Old Basford Primary School in Nottingham, stood out for having recognized that its RE had been neglected and for implementing an impressive overhaul of its provision of the subject.
First placed schools usually achieve national media coverage and other winning schools usually obtain local coverage. Their success reflects well on their local authority and provides a positive example to others. If you or your colleagues can think of a local school that excels in terms of religious inclusion and promoting mutual understanding between people of different backgrounds, then please mention the 2021 Award to them.
The Award is free to enter and open to all state funded schools in England and Wales. Accord has tried to make the process of applying as simple as possible. Most of the questions the Nomination Form poses will have already been answered, if not seriously considered, in material already produced by the school for Ofsted, the school prospectus, newsletters or internal policy documents. For more information on the Award please click here.
The 2021 Award will be judged by another respected and experienced panel. Previous judges have included former Education Secretary, Lord Baker; former Director of the UCL Institute of Education, Prof Becky Francis CBE; Shadow Foreign Secretary, Lisa Nandy; the Bishop of Buckingham, the Rt Revd Dr Alan Wilson; and journalist and political commentator, Ian Dale.
The deadline for entries is Sunday February 21st 2021 and prizes will be awarded in the Spring.
For any queries please email paul@accordcoalition.org.uk or call 020 7324 3071.