Report of the Bishops’ Symposium
on
Catholic Schools and the Church’s Contribution to Statutory Education
held on 3rd March 2006 at Archbishop’s House, Westminster
Introduction
The Bishops of England and Wales came together with their senior advisers to consider their initial response to the Education Bill published by the Government at the end of February. This first gathering followed on months of extensive briefing since the publication of the Education White Paper, Higher Standards, Better Schools for All in October 2005. Every diocese and archdiocese in England and Wales was represented among the sixty participants and the Apostolic Nuncio attended. Archbishop Cormac Murphy O’Connor opened the Symposium which was chaired by Archbishop Vincent Nichols, Chair of the Education Department of the Bishops’ Conference.
The Symposium’s purpose was to provide those who lead the Church’s engagement in the national debate with a firm foundation from which to go forward and to stimulate further discussion among all those with leadership responsibilities for the Church’s educational mission. In order to do justice to the challenge and opportunity represented by the Education Bill, the Symposium’s advance briefing papers and presentations set it within the wider context of the contemporary cultural and demographic changes that will also bear on the Church’s education mission for the future.
Sessional themes:
1. The Changing Catholic Population and the Faith Schools Debate
2. The Catholic Life of Our Schools
3. Responding to Changing Communities and Providing New Types of Schools
4. The Education Bill: Securing the VA Sector – Considering Trust Schools and other possibilities.
Each session was led by a bishop or a member of the CES team and was followed by open discussion from the floor.
Summary of the dominant threads of discussion
1. Fundamental Purpose
‘The good of the truth that is in Christ, of both the individual human
person and of the wider community, is the bedrock of our
education. What we teach is not fundamentally altered by who
we teach and changes in culture should not lead us to change what
is at the core of the curriculum.’
(Archbishop Vincent Nichols)
The symposium re-confirmed that Catholic schools and sixth form colleges are an expression of the life of the Church where the truth that is in Christ is both taught and made manifest. There was affirmation for the position that in the development of the Church’s response to the contemporary context, vision and values come first. From them will follow any particular decisions. Participants would be looking to the CES to focus on what Catholic schools seek to achieve and to advise how government policies can be deployed to reach those goals.
2. Voluntary Aided status
Participants reflected on the history of Catholic schools in England and Wales and the evolution of the church-state partnership towards the present statutory position of Voluntary Aided status. The position achieved by the 1944 Education Act and subsequently was also compared with that for Catholic education in other parts of the world. A clear statement was made at this stage that
‘VA status gives us the opportunity to achieve government set
targets and objectives within a context that is right for us.’
(Mr Frank Cogley - Liverpool)
The reasons why the Church had previously rejected Foundation Schools were still seen to be valid. Taking into account the particular rights enshrined in VA status and the alternatives proposed in the Education Bill there was a strong consensus to preserve VA status for existing schools.
3, Contemporary culture and the reality of the ‘Catholic school’
The session ‘The Catholic Life of Our Schools’ led many participants to speak about the differing realities of contemporary Catholic schools. Some of these differences have come about because of the very great variation in Catholic demography across England and Wales. Others, including difficulties in recruiting Catholic teachers, questions about the adequate formation of all teachers, the challenges in transmitting and even celebrating the faith in some of our schools, are a consequence of the contemporary cultural landscape already analysed for the Church community in ‘On the Way to Life: Contemporary Culture and Theological Development as a Framework for Catholic Education, Catechesis and Formation’. It was noted that what was articulated in On the Way to Life helps to situate the challenges faced in our schools more broadly. It may also provide a way to respond to the need, emphasised by several speakers, to articulate the different ways (the “community of faith” and “the dialogue endeavour”) that schools, particularly secondary schools and sixth form colleges, can be rightful manifestations of the Church’s mission.
It was generally agreed that the structural changes envisaged by the Education Bill should not lead to an underestimation of the importance of the cultural dimensions to change both within and outside of education. For example, the impact of the ‘Every Child Matters’ initiative had yet to be assimilated and worked through.
Given the consensus that leadership and staffing, not pupils, were what created a Catholic school, the formation of teachers for Catholic leadership should be a matter of priority.
4. Listening to the signs of the times and the Church’s wider mission
There was a wish from many participants that the Church should engage more vigorously in the debates of the day about education. Several contributors emphasised how much the discourse about the purposes of education had narrowed into one of discrete skills acquisition. They wanted to reconfirm the importance of the formation of the whole child or young person, undertaken not only through the elements of the curriculum but at least as much through the way the teachers related themselves as persons in the process of teaching.
‘So much in the contemporary debate confirms a purely
utilitarian purpose for education. In Catholic schooling the ideal is
that teachers are relating themselves, not only their subject. There
is a challenge, if we enter the debate, to articulate a different
fundamental philosophy of education and shift the language
of the debate.’
(Mgr George Stokes - Brentwood)
Going on from here, many sensed this to be a time for giving fresh direction and force to the Church’s work in statutory education and its wider educational role in society. The considerable change, not only in the policy-making sphere but also in our pluralist culture gave this an urgency. Social cohesion was seen as unattainable without greater religious literacy in society, and the Church has a vital part to play here in the national debate that was now taking place.
‘We need to resist being drawn into the debate set by others as
‘the faith schools debate’. Instead we might be looking for a
Christian-Islam dialogue and considering whether our history
and experience gives us something useful we could offer
a Muslim community seeking an educational partnership
with the state. Can we articulate our story so that we can share it
with others and thereby change the terms of the debate?’
(Dr Bernadette Porter RSCJ - Southwark)
Some questioned whether there was a need for the Church to change its stance or the nature of its involvement, given the rights enshrined in Voluntary Aided status. There was some scepticism about the relevance of potential opportunities for new forms of provision, such as community Trust schools, to the Catholic community. But several bishops spoke about the disappointment they would experience if the Church was simply to conclude that it would stay where it was without at least exploring opportunities for developing anything new. There was a danger, expressed by some contributors, in being seen as a community that only looked after itself and one that does not reach out or engage. And there was a challenge to the Church’s wider sense of mission that should not simply be set aside. As the Cardinal said, looking back over the Church’s long involvement in education and looking forward to its future involvement:
‘the vision of the Church has changed now; part of our debate
should be about the Church’s broader mission and that we
are not just here to maintain our own position.’
(Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor)
This wider educational agenda needs to be pursued whilst not neglecting the appropriateness of the VA sector for Catholic schools and, indeed, defending it.
5. Acting in unity
Recalling the importance of the position adopted previously by the Bishops’ Conference on Foundation Schools, participants affirmed their commitment to act in unity and to work strategically across the Conference in dialogue with government and other partners.
A possible way forward
Building on these dominant threads in the discussion, it seems right to ask whether what is needed in response to the Bill and wider cultural changes is a reformulation of the vision and purpose of Catholic statutory education for our own day, paralleling what was articulated by earlier generations for their own times?
Such a reformulation could enable the Church to achieve a number of the distinct but related aims that were spoken about during the symposium:
1. To restate the importance of the rights enshrined in VA status in relation to the purpose and vision of education in Catholic schools and sixth form colleges and in relation to what this current generation of leaders wishes to secure for Catholic children and young people.
2. To enter more fully into public debates about education in order to contribute the Church’s distinctive philosophy of the holistic purposes of education. Similarly, where possible, to offer the Catholic community’s experience of entering into statutory education to other religious groups with less experience.
3. To recognise with honesty those aspects of the current situation in Catholic provision which are challenging and undergoing change. To articulate the reality of the varied expressions of Catholic schooling in a way that is philosophically coherent as part of the Church’s mission through education.
4. To engage with the cultural as well as the structural changes that are integral to the Education Bill and to spend more time working through the implications of other current educational policies (e.g. the Every Child Matters and the extended school policies).
5. To investigate further, through the CES, whether and in what circumstances the Church might wish to bring its vision of Catholic education to the services of education beyond its current pattern of Catholic schools.
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