Minority Attack

1. The 1988 Education Act established, among other things, a National Curriculum for England, but RE was not included in this curriculum.  Instead, responsibility for deciding the RE curriculum was devolved to local authorities, who were each required to set up a Standing Advisory Committee for Religious Education (SACRE), to decide on a local RE curriculum, revise it periodically and continuously monitor its delivery, and take an interest in RE more generally (Devon SACRE remit, June 2026).  There is a handbook for SACRE members.  SACREs have List A voting members representing ‘religions’ ([*] handbook page 6), and List B non-voting co-opted members; I have attended as a List A member (current membership of Devon SACRE, June 2026) since last year. The committee has a pagan representative, but not currently a Muslim one.
2. Not all SACREs have humanist representatives, and if they do, they are not all full List A members. Kent County Council actually fought a court battle in 2023 to prevent a local humanist and school speaker from joining, and I hope its defeat has resulted in better representation since (hat tip to the EHCR in that ruling, who ruled that ‘religions’ includes non-religions…).  The figures below are from 2023.
   Devon SACRE has had long-standing presence of humanists and I think has a reasonably full representation of humanism in its syllabus, launched last year and set to run until 2029. We have our previous presentative, Keith Denby, to thank for his genial but firm insistence that non-religious beliefs be encountered at each Key Stage (there was a court ruling in 2015 to say that humanism should be treated with ‘equal respect’ to major world religions but it’s hard to know what that means in practice.)  SACREs don’t always have the time or the expertise for professional curriculum development, so the work of turning aims and objectives into a curriculum is often outsourced, and so it has been in Devon; you can compare the Cornwall syllabus which was written by the same outfit.
3. The business of the Devon SACRE is mostly receiving reports of activity from officers and representatives from schools and trusts; you can see from our recent agenda and draft minutes that it’s nearly all under ‘For Information’; I don’t recall us ever being asked to voted on anything apart from approving a new Chair.  The lead officer for RE in Devon, Ed Pawson, is very good in my view, well-known, vigorous and respected.  I generally welcome what I hear about what RE is being done in schools — lots of good stuff being done — and often with little time or resources.
4. There is a widespread understanding, shared by most people on the SACRE, that the time given to RE is not adequate and the quality of teaching is not always what you would want (OfStEd report 2024, House of Lords report 2024).  It is also a widely-held view that while RE in early secondary school (KS3) can be inclusive and engaging, the RE GCSE in KS4 is heavy on theology content, and students can find it disappointingly dull.  Specialist RE teachers are in short supply, recruitment is down, and those working spend a lot of time teaching other things.
5. The widespread dissatisfaction with RE teaching has led to recent and authoritative calls for RE to be part of the national curriculum (Curriculum and Assessment review report, 2025).  Humanists and secularists have mostly welcomed this (Humanists UK website 2025, NSS website, 2025).  This has yet to be agreed by the Secretary of State, and there is some ongoing reading of signs and omens to try and discern if warm words will result in action.
6. The requirement for schools to have a daily act of collective worship which is “broadly Christian in nature”, dating from the Education Act of 1994, has long been a bone in our throats, and in some schools is honoured more often in the breach than the observance.  Following a court decision about RE in Northern Ireland (another nod to the EHCR), the government is going to update its guidance, without it appears having any plans to change the letter of the law.  [This seems amazing to me: I did a ‘speaker’ visit to a church primary school last week, where the teacher asked two classfuls of pupils if any of them “believe in God” (sic), and got maybe half-a-dozen hands up.]
7. Local Government Reorganisation to create more unitary authorities may result in a new giant Devon, or two smaller Devons, or… who knows.  This may, or may not, mean new SACREs.
8. I have understood only recently that if I were unable to attend a meeting, I am able to nominate another humanist to attend in my place.  SACRE meetings are held on different days of the week, which means that some clash with my working days, and if you wanted to be on call for such a meeting, let me know. You can attend by Teams video call, although I can witness the fine quality of the biscuits for anyone attending in person.

[*] “Christian denominations and other religions and denominations of such religions as, in the opinion of the authority, will appropriately reflect the principal religious traditions in the area” [back]

• FireEye (2020): In one of the most high-profile breaches, this top-tier firm was targeted by a highly sophisticated state-sponsored actor (widely believed to be Russian). The attackers stole “Red Team” tools—software FireEye uses to mimic hackers when testing their clients’ defenses.
• SolarWinds (2020): While primarily an IT management company, its Orion software is used by security teams worldwide. A massive supply chain attack allowed hackers to insert malicious code into software updates, compromising thousands of organisations, including U.S. government agencies and other security firms like FireEye.
• Okta (2022 & 2023): This identity management leader has faced multiple incidents. In 2022, the Lapsus$ hacking group breached a third-party support provider, gaining access to some customer data. In 2023, they suffered another breach of their support case management system, which allowed hackers to view files uploaded by customers.
• LastPass (2022): The password manager firm suffered a significant breach where attackers stole cloud-based backups of customer vault data. This was particularly damaging as it required a multi-stage attack starting from an employee’s personal computer.
• Kaspersky Lab (2015): The Moscow-based firm discovered it had been targeted by “Duqu 2.0,” a highly advanced malware likely created by a nation-state to spy on its research and technologies.
• RSA Security (2011): Hackers stole information related to SecurID two-factor authentication tokens. This breach was significant because it potentially compromised the security of every RSA customer using those tokens at the time.
• Trend Micro (2008): A Turkish hacker successfully defaced the Trend Micro website, demonstrating that even antivirus giants can fall victim to web-based attacks.

Regist36_2025_sig

In this position, it is black to move and I believe black is better. White has a safer king as black’s king is more exposed but I am finding difficulty on how to bring it to a safe position. King to F8 is risky because of the dark squared bishop. White has a better pawn structure than black however black has better attacking chances on the king side. Black seems to have more piece activity than white. I am very keen to move my pawn to c4, blocking the light squared bishop to the queen side and I can also do a fork with pawn to g3. I really want my knight at the e4 square but it’s difficult because white can do a knight trade with knight to f2. This is a type of position where I am getting confused seeing which is the best move in a game. That (rook) at f1 is also a potential threat.

•  Development: White needs 1 move to connect Rooks, Black needs 2
•  King safety: White’s King is safer, Black’s is stuck in the centre
•  Weaknesses: g5 and e4 are weak; f7, c3 and a3 might become weak
•  Piece activity: about equal
•  Forcing moves and initiative: White has e4-e5, Black has …g5-g4
•  Lines: No fully open files, but Black’s Rg8 looks positive and White’s Bishops have good scope.
•  Centre and space: White has a better centre although Black has enough space for their pieces.

So, nothing that suggests this position is better for Black.

•  Your g-pawn is under threat, although you have a counter-threat against e4.
•  So you can play …Nh7 to protect your g-pawn, or …g5-g4 to get it to a square where you aren’t losing it for nothing.
•  Alternatively, you say that White can have that g-pawn if you can have the e-pawn, and play instead …dxe4.
•  Yet another idea is to threaten to win the d-pawn by pinning the c-pawn against the Queen: …Qc7 or …Qc8 or …Rc8 threatens …cxd4 when White can’t take back.

This will give you the engine evaluation in pawn’s-worth and the best move (or the best 4-5 moves in order)
If you leave Stockfish turned on, it might change its mind about exactly what the evaluation is, or which of the 4 moves is a bit better than the others, but it should give you a broad idea about the position.
If I do that to your position, it comes up with +2.3, which is to say, although material is equal, White has an advantage in position which is worth more than 2 extra pawns.
If I look at the 4-5 best moves for Black, it lists them as …dxe4, …g4, …cxd4, ….Qc8, and …Qc7, and they’re all about as good as each other.  I didn’t think of …cxd4 and I don’t know the idea behind it.   That is the disadvantage of computer analysis — you can see the evaluation and the moves but you don’t get any explanation.  +2.3 might mean that White’s position is better but not why… or that Stockfish sees that in 10 moves’ time White can win 2 pawns… or win a Knight for a pawn.
But the computer is a good check on your assessment and analysis.  The best way to use it is the way things happened here: you committed yourself to an evaluation, and then checked it.  And that process is the key to improvement.
bw
D