A personal Easter reflection on our English Catholic schools Simon Uttley

Forced Academisation in the English Catholic school represents a lobster pot, a one-way
trap eroding the security enjoyed as Voluntary Aided schools, eroding the unique post1944 settlement (Education Act, 1944) and contributing to the overall national cost - if the
Labour partys figures are to be believed- of upwards of 1.3 Billion (The Guardian, 2nd
April 2016) for all schools affected. A lot of money when the evidence for improvement is
inconclusive (NFER, 2015) and the ultimate destination of failed academies and
particularly failed Multi Academy Trusts - is likely to be the growth of, essentially, private
Academy chains. At present such chains are not-for-profit, though this is by no means
going to be the case in the long term. And while Sponsor Academy chains offer some
positive empirical evidence of raising standards in some cases, there is very significant
variation in outcomes for disadvantaged pupils, both between and within chains
(Hutchings, Francis, Kirby, 2015:4).
It is true there are more good schools in England than ever before: 82% of primary schools
and 71% of secondary schools were rated by Ofsted as good or outstanding at the end of
the last parliament. Nevertheless, the Educational Select Committee itself was clear:
Time and research will improve understanding of which factors have contributed
most to this welcome development. In the meantime the Government should stop
exaggerating the success of academies and be cautious about firm conclusions
only proven alternative for a struggling school. (House of Commons Education
Select committee, 2015).
As a GCSE student in one of our Catholic schools knows, correlation is not causation.
While the attraction to schools of academisation was predominantly financial allowing
them to draw down funding previously retained - the second attraction has always been
what can be seen to be freedom from. Freedom from a difficult (or inept?) Local Authority,
for example. Yet this same freedom from tendency in our Catholic schools in recent years
has, in some celebrated cases, been freedom from the Diocese itself. The successful,
high-preforming Catholic school, loved by its parents yet held back by the Diocese is a
sketch well-known to Catholic school leaders and a worrying sketch, too. However
tedious it can be for a high-flying Catholic school leader, enjoying the plaudits of the State,
to have to bend the knee to the (tiresome) Diocese/Religious Trustees, we must, surely,
recognise what it is to be ecclesial communities, subject to the canon law of the Church
and to the authority of the Diocesan Bishop. As Catholics individual or collective we
subscribe to a world-view predicated not on freedom from but, instead, recognising
interdependence over independence, the common good over asymmetric winners and
losers, dignity before rights. Multi-Academy Trusts may offset the individualism at the heart
of academisation, but how are we engaging the Hierarchy-wide Catholic community in the
debate?
Within the Catholic educational community the debate is hardly ear-splitting. Partly this is
because, in our Client-Master relationship with the state, we know when we are defeated.
Partly it is because many parents want a good school and who can blame them which
is essentially high performing, safe and happy. Partly it is because of the collected
exhaustion experienced many school leaders of whatever type- with what seems like an
eternity of national Government policy on the hoof. True, there is debate around
admissions rules and land acquisition but this tends to be the preserve of the cognoscenti

 the Diocesan Directors, some Bishops and our lawyers both civil and canon, the latter
particularly in the field of land ownership. As Steinbecks Crooks in Of Mice and Men
reminds us, Just like heaven. Everbody wants a little piece of lan . And, of course any
debate is inevitably hampered by the presence of 22 sovereign dioceses arranged into 5
provinces (as well as an under-resourced Catholic Education Service) in the hierarchy of
England and Wales, a model ripe for overhaul if we wish our Catholic community to speak
with the expertise and clarity needed in the future. But be under no illusion: there will be
debate on Academies very soon. Not least when Catholic Academies or Catholic MultiAcademy chains begin to fail and the question is then asked: what now?
But it is not merely the multiplicity of Diocesan entities, each boasting under-resourced
back office functions, that gives the Catholic educational community an identity crisis. It
partly reflects how we have moved on how we have joined the Establishment and
become very good at achieving national metrics. At competing. But at what cost?
A passionate, faith-infused focus on securing authenticity and distinctiveness around our
Catholic, Christo-centric and radical Gospel message seems increasingly the preserve of
the Catholic Leadership Symposium or the MA programme, not the school Leadership
Team or Governing Body. The intoxicating draw of securing the approbation of the State
(Ofsted Outstanding) or succumbing to the hubris of self-advancement (the Executive
Head, the Systems Leader) are understandable. Headteacher pay mortgages - particularly
lay headteachers in contrast with our religious and clerical predecessors. Diocesan
Directors of Education, too, need to walk tight ropes with Government. Surely, one can
say, this is the era of educational realpolitik. A time to get real?
But let us be under no illusion just how far Ofsted Outstanding has become the ultimate
success criterion for many of our Catholic schools. And with good (qua pragmatic) reason.
The pressure is relieved, the school leaders job is secure, Ministers and other school
leader come for visits, we are over-subscribed, we are invited to give speeches and offer
consultancy. Life is so much easier. All positive and reflecting much hard work, skilful
stewardship and tenacity. Yet at what cost to our relationship with the Man of the Passion
whose relationship with the State remained one of challenge? Where is the metric to mark
comparable importance of what makes us authentic Catholic schools? The Section 48
Inspection hardly compares in its current form for the very simple reason that (a) few
parents bother reading it and (b) Heads dont lose their job over it.
Just as the devil offered Jesus the world in his attempt to erode his authenticity in the
desert, It may be interesting to reflect that a far better way to erode a faith predicated on
Christo-centric justice isn't through national militant secularism - to which we can all
respond as a Catholic community but through flattery. The Lent and Easter narratives
remind us of this. With such political game-playing being such a central feature of the
Catholic school leaders role, one could be forgiven for feeling our contemporary
educational landscape is a far cry from Manning's Work With Children; with a philosophy
of Catholic education at the service of the poor. And anyway, who are our poor in 2016?
Not only do our Catholic schools serve individual neighbourhoods served by Food Banks,
there is a far more unknown national poverty that the authentic Catholic school is surely
called to serve. It is chastening to note that whilst England has implemented more of the
policies that would be expected to improve performance in a school system than any other

country in the world (Whelan, 2009:58), the UK educational well-being indicator1 in 2013
was below average and below Latvia, Slovakia and Lithuania (Unicef, 2013:18). The Good
Childhood Report (2014:31) found, in a survey of 42,000 children and young people, that
Children in England ranked 30th out of 39 countries in Europe and North America for
subjective wellbeing and ninth out of a sample of 11 countries around the world (The
Childrens Society, 2015). We can conclude that after a period of increase from 1994 to
2007, childrens subjective wellbeing has stopped increasing during the last few years for
which data is available.
Teenagers aged 14 and 15 had the lowest satisfaction levels, with 15 per cent found to
have low well-being compared to just four per cent of eight year olds. It warned that
although many young people did not meet the criteria for mental health problems, they
were nevertheless substantially unhappy with their lives. Though education is no
replacement for familial and societal conditioning it is, in its formative role, surely bound to
take into account any and every barrier to learning any and every obstacle to human
flourishing.
The poverty of the alienation of our young people calls out for a new Catholic anthropology
a holistic rethinking of how we foster the vocations of the young and prepare them to
navigate the volatile tectonic plates of our world. A rethinking of what it is to be Catholic
school that operates at the scraggy back of the tapestry, not the glossy front. How does
our belief in Jesus of Nazareth affect our schools under the hood? This will involve using
our locus of authenticity the experience of our young people engaging with culture. Their
lived engagement with the ethics in the everyday. With, among other things, a notion of
virtue.
Equipping our young people to read the signs of the times with a critical and reflective
attitude. Dealing with an increasingly exhausted and disillusioned staff predicated on
Micahs Act justly, Love tenderly, Walk humbly? Dealing with finance as a Catholic
community as against winner takes all? Bringing a critical faculty into each academic
discourse so that our young people can see what this stuff actually matters and that all
learning is ethical learning? Fostering vocations (in the broadest sense) with the same
rigor with which we ensure progress? Developing the teaching of virtues, drawing from the
excellent wok undertaken by the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues (Jubilee centre,
2016), Monitoring the promotion of dignity as understood by the Church and
subsequently forgotten by most of us leading Catholic institutions - with the same vigour
we self-evaluate other aspects of the school. In short, promoting those things less easily
measured and less likely to light up Ofsted dashboards.
The Section 48 report and inspection seem increasingly to reflect our acceptance of
crumbs from the Masters table where the Master is the State for whom to all intents and
purposes we appear to work. Many would find this too strong; others would not.
As we celebrate Easter it might be worth recalling that to be theologically radical is not
about strapping explosives to one's chest. It's about the choice to affirm the Widows Mite,
1

Methodologically comprising preschool participation rate (% of those aged

between 4 years and the start of compulsory education who are enrolled in
preschool). Further education participation rate (% of those aged 15 to 19
enrolled in further education) NEET rate (% aged 15 to 19 not in education,
employment or training.) Achievement Average score in PISA tests of reading,
maths and science literacy.

to dine with the sinner, to welcome the prostitute. It is about reading the signs of the times
and recognising the alienation to which our young people are subject, an alienation we, as
leaders of Catholic schools, can inadvertently conspire to exacerbate if our focus is on the
operational efficacy of the apparatus of our schools as against what we are doing to our
young. Perhaps we can start by rediscovering the possibility of love in-dignity- at the
heart of our schools. However, as none of these play to the metric of assessment and are
unlikely to secure Ofsted 'Outstanding' I doubt if we shall see them anytime soon. A good
thing Easter comes around every year to remind us.

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These views represent those of the author in his private capacity.
Simon Uttley
Childrens Society, The. The Good Childhood Report. From The Good Childhood
Report: viewed 12/3/16)
http://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/sites/default/files/The%20Good%20Childhood%20Repo
rt%202014%20-%20FINAL_0.pdf viewed 12/1/15
Education Act, The (1944) viewed 10/10/15) http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/78/31/contents/enacted
Helm, T. (2016) Tory backbench rebellion threat over George Osbornes academies plan
The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/apr/02/backbench-pressure-onosborne-academy-scheme
House of Commons Educational Select Committee (2015) Academies and Free
Schools Fourth Report of Session 2014-15 London: House of Commons
Hutchings, M., Francis, B., Kirby, P. (2015) Chain Effects: The Impact of Academy
cahins on Low Income Students. London: The Sutton Trust
Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtue (2016) , University of Birmingham
http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/education/jubilee-centre/index.aspx
National Foundation for Educational Research (2015) Slough: NFER
Unicef. (2013). Child well-being in rich countries: a comparative overview. Florence:
Unicef.
Whelan, F. (2009). Lessons Learned: How good policies produce better schools. London:
Fenton Whelan.
Worth, J. (2015). Academies: Its time to learn the lessons (NFER Thinks: What the
Evidence Tells Us). Slough: NFER.