In this month’s issue, we publish our first survey of all independent Catholic schools in Great Britain. The survey shows the diversity and strength of these institutions which, like their state counterparts, are surviving in a sector which is increasingly secular in its ethos. Formerly, Catholic schools were in competition with other Christian foundations; now all schools struggle to maintain chaplains and churchgoing as an integral part of their identity.
We should, then, salute those schools which are managing to sustain their Catholic worship and ethos; they play a critical role in the future of the Church.
Many of the schools we include were once staffed by religious orders. There are now, alas, very few religious who play an active role in teaching and school life. In some, like Ampleforth, the monks still play an important part in the school, but that role has been curtailed after abuse scandals were followed by a heavy-handed and damaging intervention by Ofsted, which went beyond the necessary requirements of child protection. Of course secular staff can and do give inspirational witness to the ethos of the founders, but there is little quite so inspirational as the example of those who have dedicated their lives to the service of the Church and the education of young people.
A majority of schools in our survey have non-Catholic as well as Catholic pupils. This can be a wonderful opportunity to share Catholic values and worship with pupils of other denominations or of no faith at all. Indeed, it may be an opportunity for evangelism. However, the presence of non-Catholics cannot be an excuse for diluting the ethos of the schools; it is precisely that ethos which may have attracted parents to these schools in the first place.
If there is a common element to Catholic schools in the state and private sectors over and above the practice of the faith, it is a commitment to educating the whole person. That is to say, a Catholic school may never simply be committed to academic achievements at the expense of other elements of personal formation. It should be axiomatic that a pupil’s spiritual and moral formation is more important than his or her exam grades. Yet there are some schools where a disproportionate focus on academic results has – quite unnecessarily – displaced other priorities, with terrible human consequences. That is the antithesis of what a Catholic education is about.
Yet this survey of independent Catholic schools should give us hope that the Church’s pedagogical role is still strong and distinctive. The proud boast of one Benedictine school was that while other schools prepared pupils for life, theirs prepared them for death – for eternal life. A Catholic education should prepare pupils to be good members of society but also to have their sights firmly fixed on salvation.
