Schools: bishop warns of dictatorship

BY A SPECIAL. CORRESPONDENT
IF THE state took over
education in Britain completely it could only do so as a dictator, warned Bishop Gordon Wheeler of Leeds when he opened the new Halifax Catholic High School.
Bishop Wheeler said: "Until 100 years ago all teaching had been provided by voluntary bodies and the Church had always been a great educator. It was not until 1870 that the state really began to take over .
"There is a great tradition of religious schools. They add another dimension to education and it is supremely important that our Catholic schools go on."
Continued co-operation between parents, teachers, and the local authority would nurture and maintain the great tradition that had been handed on.
The new Halifax High School has been created by extending St. Thomas More Secondary School — itself a new building — to cater for all the Catholic children of secondary school age in one comprehensive school.
The extensions have cost £313,000 and mean that every Catholic child in Halifax can
enter a new or remodelled school for every stage of its school career from infant to sixth form.
AWARD
During the ceremony Bishop Wheeler presented the former headmaster of St. Thomas More School, Mr. Jim O'Reilly, with the Papal award Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, in recognition of his 36 years of teaching in Halifax. the last 25 as headmaster, first of St. Joseph's Secondary Modern School and then of St. Thomas M ore.
A native of Co. Durham, Mr. O'Reilly trained as a teacher at St. Mary's College, Strawberry Hill. He was a pioneer in the teaching of Civic Studies and his annual Civics Evenings never failed to bring M.P.s and councillors to observe how the children ran their own school council and were responsible for much of the internal administration.
It was one of the few schools which lived up to the recommendations of the Spens Report on pupil participation. Mr. O'Reilly was a youth leader and Chairman of the Halifax Youth Committee for many years, He is now an active Samaritan.