7th April 2006
As our schools close for their holiday and we all prepare for Holy Week, it is timely to take stock of where we are in relation to thinking and activities following the Bishops’ Education Symposium earlier in March and the subsequent conferences of the Diocesan Schools’ Commissioners and of NBRIA. Throughout this period my colleagues and I have also continued discussions with ministers and senior DfES officials in order to retain and secure the best possible position for our schools.
With all this in mind I want to be sure that everyone is clear about the remit that has been given to the CES and, in turn to all our partners, from the Bishops’ Symposium and subsequently reinforced by Archbishop Nichols. This is to:
i. Reformulate our vision for Catholic education in the present context of society in England and Wales.
ii. Retain and secure voluntary aided schools as the Church’s continued model of provision for its Catholic community.
iii. Begin to explore how we may additionally serve the most disadvantaged and needy in society by working in new ways to make our experience and expertise available for the service of others, e.g. the possibility of new kinds of partnerships, contributing to different provision that would not be a Catholic school.
Please, therefore, be assured that our VA schools remain precious, that they remain the preferred model, and that their security and freedom to offer a distinctly Catholic education continue to be the priority to which the CES is working.
Foundation schools, which now are being heavily promoted by Government through the Education and Inspection bill, continue to be unacceptable because they would not enable the Catholicity of the school to be adequately protected. We would, for example, lose the protections presently used in the appointment of the Headteacher, the position we enjoy in relation to the provision of Religious Education, and there would be fundamental changes in relation to Governorship issues.
Archbishop Nichols, my colleagues and I have been repeatedly given assurances by Ministers that they do not wish to take away any of the privileges and responsibilities that we enjoy in our voluntary aided sector and there will be no action to that effect on their part. This was reaffirmed only yesterday in a conversation between Archbishop Nichols and Andrew Adonis.
I hope that I have provided some clarity and a useful update for you. I will continue to ensure that bulletins about the progress of the Education and Inspection Bill are posted on the CES website. The Standing Committee for the Education and Inspection Bill has met twice and is now in recess. It reconvenes on 18 April for seven more sessions. My colleagues and I will be seeking to influence the formation of clauses of the Bill on those matters of particular importance to our sector. Detailed conversations with DfES officers to this effect continue.
Oona Stannard
Cheif Executive and Director | 
