Proven worth of our schools

School governor John O'Donnell reflects on the latest plans to reorganise Westminster's schools
NEWS ANALYSIS
IN TIME, someone seeking to understand the decision-making
process of the Diocese of Westminster in regard to secondary education in Central London, will question how it took nearly a decade to bring about a proposed reorganisation.
I have forgotten how many schemes have been proposed, and how many debates I have attended before eventually seeing everything rejected.
Will there be a legacy of bitterness when the final decision is made? And are we anywhere near that point?
Governors in one school have been sacked, others have resigned. The publicity has been rife, the debate has been conducted both through the national and local press.
Yet, at no time, has anyone
really answered the question "Why has it taken so long to bring about this reorganisation?" The protagonists took up their stances some 8 years ago and have not really altered their position. A generation of pupils have passed through the system. New parents have come into the fray and they have voiced the same argument, pitting one school against the other.
Can it be argued that there has been a lack of leadership on the part of the diocese and now, when it attempts such a role, is it too late?
Parents at the Cardinal Manning School believe that their school will eventually be sacrificed to ensure the continuance of the London Oratory and the Cardinal Vaughan School. Nothing will disabuse them of this. They have had quoted at them statements for former Secretaries of State for Education and Sciences, that no school of "proven worth" will be closed. But how do you measure "proven worth" — academic success that is one definition — is it the only one accepted by those who make decisions. This is a rhetorical question to which I have no answer.
What I would like to pose, however, is, what of the school that has taken pupils at the age of 11 and for whom English is not their mother-tongue, and 5 years later, has them successfully passing public examinations? A school that has, in these times of high unemployment, succeeded in providing work, or further education, for nearly all its school-leavers. A school that, through the example of its past and present teachers, reinforces for many pupils, who have tremendous secular pressures bearing upon them, the elements of the Catholic faith, thereby allowing them to have the ability to retain their own Catholicity. Such a school is the Cardinal Manning.
The Cardinal Manning has a thriving youth club, which has given many of its past pupils a continuity as they pass into adulthood.
All of these items I would argue are measures of "proven worth". Education is going through a period of change, pupil-numbers are falling, we are seeing the emergence of a different style of tertiary sector. The Church should be in the vanguard and, belatedly, the diocese may well be seeking such a role. If we are to be a community, then let us practice what we preach.
When the final decision is made on this proposed reorganisation in Central London, then let us ensure that we all act as one, to make the future a success, and not seek to re-fight old battles.
Finally, what must not happen is that we have a shortage of places and we become very selective in who we are prepared to take into our Catholic schools — nominal parently attendance at Sunday Mass must not be the sole criterion for admission.
John O'Donnell is the chairman of Governors at the Cardinal Manning School.