Catholic schools in a period of consolidation

A FAMOUS American
Professor of Education once opened his lecture to students with this remark: "Whatever statement you wish to make about American education is true."
Now Catholic secondary education is not so vast to have that remark applied to it, but it does consist of more than 500 schools and possesses a collective and unique experience and expertise.
After rapid expansion in the 1950's and 1960's, Catholic secondary schools, for the most part, are now settling in to a period of consolidation. Teachers, governors and parents in many schools are holding Days of Reflection to consider the philosophy of the school and ways in which it can best serve the pupils and its community. No longer is a Catholic secondary school seen to be an agency for total protection from the outside world, but rather a caring, loving Christian establishment in itself. where students can be helped to become apostles within the wider community. Adopting the policy that the need for young people to care is as important as the need to be cared for, and that caring needs to be combined with a deep Christian commitment, schools are devising patterns of liturgy and Christian involvement which could profitably be followed by others outside the, school.
Many schools are developing residential courses to provide a definite and rich religious "experience", "Encounter Days", "courses for parents," "Caring Church Weeks" and adult religious education courses within the cornmunity, and yet there is a vital need for much more co-operation and support by..the school to the community and from the community to the school.
Travelling the country as I do, and observing so many varieties of secondary school organisations and communities. 1 have reflected on the different assumptions that the Catholic body expects from a Catholic secondary school.
Mobility
In the recent past the local parish contained the means of satisfying every need, except employment, required by the average Catholic, especially in our urban areas. The great majority of Catholics were born, received the Sacraments, were educated, married and often died within the same parish.
Having been born into the Church, it was difficult to cease to "practise" and still live within the boundaries of the same parish.
The structure of the tight, cosy, often very pleasant community has been largely swept away by the social changes and geographical mobility of the last few decades and fewer people appear to have that former strong allegiance to the local parish — an allegiance which was often strengthened by the close alliance of the school and parish and the presence of teachers who often lived within the parochial boundaries.
Those comparatively few pupils who attended secondary schools appeared not to have the same allegiance to the local parish and were often considered to be "lost" to the parish. Now there is Catholic secondary education for all and very few secondary schools serve the one parish, most are multiparochial and many are making desperate and valiant efforts to establish and maintain links with their local parishes.
The question which exercises my mind, and to which I have no easy
solution, is that if the schools are now multi-parochial and many parishes in the urban areas send children to several different Catholic secondary schools, can those former links with the local parish be maintained without a revision ol the pastoral strategy of the Church and a definition of the role that the Catholic secondary school ought to play within that strategy?
As stated previously, I have no easy solution, but there appears to be a tendency for Catholic secondary schools to become isolated from the local Catholic community, resulting from a confusion as to what the local community expects from' the schools and how the local community can support the school.
The expectation from each school can be different depending on a variety of factors, such as the quality of the Catholic character of the school, the links between school and parish, the involvement with and the support of the local Catholic community, hut perhaps chiefly from the policy of admissions of pupils.
Traditional
In most parts of the country, it has been traditional to admit to our Catholic schools all those children whose parents applied and in former times it could be assumed that in our schools the great majority of our pupils and teachers were "practising" Catholics.
Nowadays there can be a variation of between one-third and a total allegiance to the Faith but expectation of the role of the Catholic school can appear to be the same. In some parts of the country there has been an acute shortage of places in our Catholic secondary schools, and therefore some schools have been vastly over-subscribed and the policy of admission has been to admit "practising" Catholic children from "practising" Catholic homes. All schools need local support, but in some deprived areas the amount of support available is extremely limited and often those areas experience the greatest difficulty in recruiting the good, dedicated Catholic teacher.
Expansion
Universal Catholic secondary education in England and Wales is not more than 15 years old, and because of the vitally necessary rapid expansion, it has been difficult to do more than cope with the situation; but now that there is a "levelling off" in expansion of schools, perhaps it is an appropriate time for reflection on the purpose and expectations of our Catholic secondary schools.
I have no doubt that if there were an adequate supply of dedicated, committed Catholic teachers then they would be able to cope with any policy of admissions, but I am pleading for a more "open" attitude from all sectors of the Catholic community.
There is a high expectation of what can be achieved in the spiritual development of pupils in our schools, but this is based on the assumption that all pupils have attained the same stage of spiritual
development on entry at I I years of age. This is not true even in those areas which admit only "practising" Catholics.
Responsibilities
Governors should be aware of their responsibility to foster and maintain the Catholic character at the schools, and there should be a local assessment of the expectation of the role of the local Catholic secondary school.
I am not suggesting that any pupils should be excluded. If it is Felt that the Catholic school can be of special benefit to a child, then he or she should be admitted if there is room and if Catholic children are not thereby excluded. This sort of assessment might lead to a system of diocesan priorities.
Many of our schools, in some of the deprived areas especially, are performing valiant missionary work, but they often need to be given greater support and the only way to give the support that is necessary is by an understanding of what can be expected of the individual schools after examining the resources available to it.
J. N. Winstanley National Adviser on Secondary Education