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Abstract
Research by Grace, G. R. (2002. Catholic Schools: Mission, Markets, and Morality. London: Routledge/Falmer) and Wilkin, R. 2014. (“‘Interpreting the Tradition’: A Research Report.” International Studies in Catholic Education 6 (2): 164–177) has drawn attention to the importance of spiritual capital amongst Catholic school head teachers and the possibility of its generational decline. This small-scale study seeks to understand the aspiration and formation of the next generation of Catholic school leaders. It found that there is a need for positive models of headship and a desire for leadership formation that is practical, relevant and yet equips future leaders with knowledge of the Catholic tradition, knowledge that they may lack in comparison with earlier generations of head teachers brought up in a more influential Catholic culture. The findings point to a need for well-resourced, school-based formation in which head teachers play an important role and which allows time for prayerful contemplation, in addition to sufficient theoretical content to allow future leaders to look outside their immediate school context to the wider mission of Catholic education.
Notes on contributor
Dr Richard Wilkin is Head teacher of Brentwood Ursuline Convent High School in Essex UK and he is a Visiting Research Associate of the Centre for Research and Development in Catholic Education at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, London. He obtained his Doctorate in Education from the UCL Institute of Education in 2014. He was a former Deputy Head at St. Edmund’s College, Ware and subsequently Head teacher of St. Bede’s Inter-Church School in Cambridge, UK. Research interests include understanding religious identity among contemporary adolescents and how contemporary Catholic head teachers ‘interpret’ the Catholic tradition.
Notes
1 The MAT policy is a development of the academy policy. There has been a long process whereby schools have assumed greater control over how they are run, starting with Local Management of Schools in the 1980s, followed by Grant Maintained Status in the 1990s and the first opening of academies in 2002. After 2010, the academy policy was broadened, with the aim that all schools would eventually become independent of Local Authority (LA) involvement. With the atomisation of education, however, came the challenge of how to promote improvement and support struggling schools that might formerly have been supported by the LA. This has resulted in Multi Academy Trusts, which become responsible for supporting and improving each other collectively. MATs are accountable to Regional Schools Commissioners who are appointed by the DfE. Some critics claim that MATs are simply ‘mini Local Authorities’ but without the local democratic accountability; supporters claim that school improvement is being put in the hands of school leaders, rather than LA managers. A school which fails to meet Ofsted standards is usually directed to become an academy, but because schools can no longer become ‘stand-alone academies’, that means joining a MAT. This has led dioceses to form Catholic MATs, to ensure that any struggling Catholic school can be placed with other Catholic schools if required to become an academy. Some dioceses have gone further and insisted that all schools, from the most to the least successful, become part of a MAT over the next few years. Critical questions remain to be answered: how is the merging of individual schools, each with its own identity, compatible with the principle of subsidiarity? Are dioceses all well-placed to direct and support this process of MAT formation, or will it be a case of ‘winner takes all’ as stronger schools form MATs and ‘super heads’ become MAT Chief Executive Officers with little diocesan involvement? Apart from the names given to Catholic MATs, is there anything distinctively Catholic in this new model of educational provision?
2 As more schools have become academies no longer accountable to the Local Authority, LAs have tried to maintain school improvement services for schools, as well as offering other services (e.g. HR, legal advice) to academies for a fee as ‘traded services’. The success of this change has varied across the country but with MATs, commercial suppliers and, to some extent, dioceses trying to provide school improvement services, many LAs are cutting their services or removing them altogether.
3 The Memorandum of Understanding states on page 6, point (k): Where there is cause for concern in any Catholic school or academy, a ‘sponsor’ will be agreed where local circumstances indicate that this would be an appropriate way forward and in consultation with the relevant Diocese. Where a sponsor is being sought, the presumption will be that the Diocese’s preferred sponsorship arrangements will be accepted if the Secretary of State is satisfied that the sponsorship package contains the appropriate capacity and expertise to address the needs of the particular school causing concern.
4 The identification of ‘fast-track’ candidates will vary between schools. There is no national ‘fast track’ for teachers, though the Teach First programme (see note 6 below) might be considered a fast track in those areas in which it operates. In schools, there might be a distinction between those who simply seek rapid promotion (for a variety of reasons) and those who genuinely have the potential to make good leaders.
5 Executive Head teachers generally manage more than one school, sometimes with ‘Heads of School’ carrying out the day to day leadership while the Executive Head teacher has a more strategic role. The term Chief Executive Officer seems to be replacing the term Executive Head teacher in MATs, perhaps extending further the influence of the business model in educational leadership.
6 Teach First is a charity, operating since 2002, which places well-qualified graduates into challenging schools to train as teachers. After five weeks’ intensive training, they are placed in a school to carry out a two-year programme of leadership development, qualifying as a teacher in the first year and carrying out their Newly Qualified Teacher (NQT) year in the second. Teach First candidates are often given leadership responsibility at a very early stage in their careers. This is not always a positive experience for new teachers, as such promotions are sometimes the result of staffing shortages in challenging schools and so make demands on them that they are ill-prepared to meet.
7 The increase in accountability in teaching is a marked feature of the last two decades. There are numerous reasons for this, many connected to the changing nature of Ofsted inspections. Recent financial pressures on schools have increased the need for efficiency, cut support staff and further worsened the widespread feeling that workload is increasing. This phenomenon is common to Catholic schools as well as secular schools.
8 The National Professional Qualification for Head teachers was introduced in 1997 and became mandatory in 2009 for all first-time head teachers in maintained schools; in 2012 this requirement was lifted. The qualification tried to ensure that candidates were prepared for headship by using a combination of face-to-face and online training, combined with evidence of school-based leadership. NPQH was intended as a qualification taken just before applying for headship but because teaching careers seldom follow an entirely predictable timetable this progression could not be guaranteed and the situation arose whereby many senior school leaders had the qualification but either would not, or could not, progress to headship. In addition, it was problematic for the same qualification to be taken by deputy head teachers of large secondary schools and assistant head teachers of small primary schools. These same issues exist for any Catholic leadership formation programme following the template of the NPQH: are the right candidates taking the qualification and is one model suitable for all phases and types of school?
9 Time for reflection or contemplation is in short supply in the modern Catholic school. Some schools are exemplary in the time they devote to retreats, liturgies and staff prayer but many find it hard to provide these opportunities and even harder to persuade a diverse and hard-pressed staff to take advantage of them. Head teachers are resourceful in finding small spaces to introduce reflection but the responsibility for putting time aside to engage in the kind of contemplation that a prospective Catholic school leader might benefit from will inevitably be the responsibility of the individual.
10 How many Heads have the potential for the Mentor role? Head teachers have to believe that they have something to offer, other than just hard labour. There is often a growing awareness in the mind of a prospective head teacher that they want to do things their way, that they are dissatisfied with a particular state of affairs and want to change it; this feeling may be particularly strong in one aspiring to Catholic leadership because there is an added dimension of vocation, of doing the job because God is calling you to do His work in some way. This perspective of vocation makes the Catholic head teacher naturally sceptical about the ‘false idols’ of education, the initiatives and pressures that come and go. The deep-seated belief that Catholic schools are involved in faith formation as well as exam or Ofsted success gives the Catholic head teacher a different accountability and emboldens them to resist those pressures that do not serve the formation of their students. It is one thing for the head teacher to feel this, however, and another to be able to communicate it effectively to colleagues, so that they too feel the resilience that comes from a sense of vocation.
11 Raymond Friel (Citation2018) has drawn attention to the ‘fitful attention’ (p. 84) given to the formation of Catholic educators in the last 40 years, a period which has seen a transition in the leadership of schools to lay people. In his research, serving head teachers attending the National Retreat drew on their upbringing for spiritual resources but they ‘did not always deepen them or help them to grow as adult Christians’ (p. 89). The challenge for a broader, national system of Catholic leadership formation is to provide opportunities for spiritual development that will appeal to both the committed and the uncertain amongst AHTs and DHTs. Whatever is provided will need to fit in with the busy schedules of AHTs and DHTs, people who are unlikely to enjoy the freedom to take part in a residential retreat, even if they wanted to. Combining the practical with the contemplative, the spiritual and the earthly in a way that is relevant to the needs and workloads of aspirant head teachers will be a considerable challenge for those designing any programme of Catholic leadership formation.