 Ac mae'n eu gweithio eu gwaith i gyd i Gwylod Cymru. Rwy'n meddwl i'r profiad eich cyfnodau gyda gwyffredig yma, sy'n amgylch yn ymgyrch arall ystod i gyd yn y rhan. Mae'r profiad eich cyfnodau gyda'r gwerthwyr o'r ddymarthau ar gyfer gweithio a gwylltau arcaficol sy'n gweithio ar Lundi Llywodraeth Llywodraeth Llywodraeth yn 1997. It was the first such centre in Europe. He's also the author of School Leadership Beyond Education Management, Catholic Schools on the Common Good, what this means in educational practice, and Catholic Schools Mission Markets and Morality. Professor Grace is also the editor of the International Handbook of Catholic Education, and the editor of the International Studies in Catholic Education. We were very fortunate, as until recently, Professor Grace was the external examiner for MA in Catholic School Leadership here at St Mary's College. He has had a long and distinguished career, both in the UK and internationally. He's taught education studies at St Paul's Roman Catholic College of Education, at King's College London, the University of Cambridge, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and at the University of Durham, where he was the head of the School of Education. So it's with much pleasure that I welcome Professor Grace this evening, and he is going to talk to us about mission integrity. Thank you, Professor Griffiths Baker, for that very generous introduction. I had to keep moving a lot, you see, to keep one step ahead of the taxation authorities, and it's a very good strategy to keep changing posts. So that is why they had quite a long recitation, and New Zealand was my final haven. No, not my final haven, but a nice haven. So it is a great pleasure for me to have the opportunity for participating with you in discussion about mission integrity, contemporary challenges for Catholic School, sorry, for school leaders. I want to say straight away that I hope to give only half of the time to my presentation and to give half of the time to dialogue and discussion with you. My experience is that that tends to bring the subject fully alive, and of course it puts the speaker on the spot because you raise the things he's carefully avoided saying. But there'll be some of you in this audience, I know it, at the end of a long and wearing day, no doubt, who are thinking, why have we got to listen to this man called Gerald Grace? There will be people in this room who are thinking that, I know it. And so I say, I remind you of the text of Saint Paul, without grace none shall be saved. So I just had to be here. Now I need to clarify one or two issues before we start, that is to say, before we start on the handout which you have, let me clarify one or two points. When this paper refers to leaders, it does not mean only head teachers and members of the senior leadership team, it means all teachers, because every teacher is a leader at some level. Not paid, Mark, as if they were a leader at some level, but they are a leader at some level. And we are in the era of shared or distributed leadership, a conception of educational leadership which is not only more democratic, but also a version of leadership which is likely to be more effective in dealing with the many challenges of the contemporary context. Contemporary thinking about educational leadership is moving beyond ideas of the hero head teacher or the super head to embrace concepts of shared leadership in schools. You are then all leaders at various levels and therefore the challenge of mission integrity applies to you all. So what is mission integrity and why is it a challenge in schools? Now I first developed the concept of mission integrity in 2002 when I was invited to write a chapter for the second International Handbook of Educational Leadership under the title, the title of the chapter was Mission Integrity Contemporary Challenges for Catholic School Leaders. I define mission integrity then as, I quote, fidelity in practice and not just in public rhetoric but the distinctive and authentic principles of a Catholic education. Now I recognise that in this room we have as many teachers from community schools as we have from faith-based schools. So obviously I must formulate a second definition of mission integrity relevant to the community school. That would be, it would start the same as the one for the Catholic School, fidelity in practice and not just in public rhetoric to the distinctive and authentic principles of a humane and comprehensively enriching community education. And what's running through both of those definitions of mission integrity is it so easy to make fine statements in your prospectus about the mission to declare to the world the guiding principles of the school. So easy. And of course the public, like it, gives them confidence. They think, my God, look at this mission statement here. It reads like the sermon on the mount. This is a school where I can commit my children if they really believe in these principles. Fine. But is it realised in practice? Does the school live according to the mission principles it proclaims to the world? So in other words, mission integrity, and this is the central concept I want to get across to you this evening, I suppose especially because I think it is an endangered concept. I think we're all, whether we're in faith-based schools or community schools, in situations where we may be compromising our mission principles step by step, gradually, under the force of external expectations from governments, but instead parents. You remember when Jesus said to the questioners who said to him, to whom is it right to pay this coin? And he made the brilliant answer. Whose head is on this? And they said, well, it's Caesar's. So he said, well, you render to Caesar that which is Caesar's and to God that which is God. Now that is the challenge, I think, of mission integrity. Caesar is the state. Caesar is Ofsted. Caesar, in one sense, yet you recognise that, I say. Caesar is certainly Ofsted. And in one sense the parents constitute a Caesar-like force all bearing down upon the school with what they want from it. But for faith-based schools, certainly, and of course for many community schools, surely, there is a rendering to God as well. We cannot render only to Caesar. But of course we have to realise that the art of survival in educational leadership is to find the legitimate balance between those two demands. If I had to sum up what is the essence of educational leadership with integrity and effectiveness and likelihood of survival, this matters, I would say an educational leader is one who is able to bring into balance the demands of Caesar on the one hand and the requirements of faith on the other. Now that may be a religious faith, or your faith in humane democratic values, but you have to try to keep them in balance. So what has this got to do with educational leadership? Well, I think I've made it fairly clear. I will argue tonight that the responsibilities of educational leadership are different from those of educational management. Leadership is vision-related, mission-related, and values-related. And its prime concern is not to lose sight of the larger questions of what education is ultimately about. These larger questions about what education is ultimately about can get lost in the pressures of managerial, bureaucratic, and technical business. And this is why I wrote the book, School Leadership and Subtitled it, Beyond Education Management in 1995, and why it is still in print, and why those who read it closely are likely to receive a distinction mark in their MAs. I could guarantee that if I was the external examiner, I would not. And I wrote it, excuse me, that red wine last night. I was a mistake. They say it's good for the heart, but it's bad for the presentation. I wrote it because at that time, 1980s, 1990s, there was a cult of educational management as if educational management alone was the secret of educational leadership. People were doing MBAs in educational management and so forth. And I saw in that that the concept of school leadership was being marginalised, pushed aside like yesterday's idea. Today's idea was to be an efficient, all systems firing, all up to date, all executive and in command educational management. And I wanted therefore to show in this book that that is a very reductionist view of what education is all about. Of course, leaders must have, must either be also able to be managers, or they must have about them persons who are good managers. We do need good management. But educational leadership in one sense looks further and it looks larger than does that of an educational manager who is more focused on technicalities, balance sheets and such necessary matters. So, if mission integrity then in educational leadership is about defending mission principles, because that's ultimately what it is about, defending mission principles and if possible, even enhancing those mission principles, then what are these fundamental principles which should guide our practice? So, would you turn now then to your handout, which is where I will be talking about those principles. Now, you have this handout for two reasons. The first is that I'm a great believer in an ancient pedagogy on which I was raised myself, which is known as reading around the class. Now, this means that at any moment I may point to any one of you and say, Eric Tope reads the next paragraph and he won't be following you now, I'm certain. So, have me with the text, because I'm a great believer in reading around the class. But secondly and more seriously, it's your homework text. We're never going to cover everything that's in that paper, so I want you to take that away and at your leisure study it in some depth. So, let's turn then to these fundamental principles. The fundamental principles for educational leaders who are concerned about the question of mission integrity. I suppose what I'm saying to you is, if an educational leader is not concerned about mission integrity, then they are not a proper educational leader. They might be a good educational manager, but they're not an educational leader. They've lost sight of the big questions that an educational leader should always be entertaining and thinking about. I've also got to remember that this paper was originally conceived on the question of mission integrity for Catholic school leaders and most of the conferences I now address are entirely to Catholic educators across the world. But I will try in each case, for each principle that I put to you, I'll try to give first the Catholic reading of it and then I'll attempt a community school reading of it. Recognising we have these two groups here. Now, the Catholics do have certain advantages in education. I mean, quite apart from the fact that they're confident they're saved forever. That's even from Ofsted. They have a great advantage in that they have this small document issued by the Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education in Rome in 1977. It is one of the most brilliant statements about Catholic schooling and look how small it is. Small can be beautiful. This small is beautiful. It expresses the principles of a post-Vatican to Catholic education, absolutely beautiful and with great wisdom. So, I always say, and I'm addressing Catholic school leaders, as your entry grows and grows and grows with bureaucratic and reports to be done and paperwork of all sorts, keep that one always on the top. The danger, of course, at modern schooling is that the bureaucracy, the paperwork gets higher and higher and it buries the mission. So you think I'm doing a good job of how I'm clearing this paperwork, getting these reports of keeping the government's happy. All of this, of course, is necessary. But if you've buried your concept of a mission, it's like Thomas More says to Richard Rich in A Man For All Seasons. You remember that scene? When Richard Rich has just committed an act of perjury to say that he knew that Thomas More denied the title of Henry VIII to be head of the church in England, and more knows he's lying and he looks at it and he says, why Richard? It is written, is it not? What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? But for Wales, he'd done it to become solicitor general. I'm not some laugh and I don't know if there are any worse people here. Now I don't want you to take this personally. It's an indicative principle I'm giving you. But it was Richard Rich that accepted the title, solicitor general for Wales in order to perjure himself and say that Thomas More had committed what was an act of treason. So you see that very thing. What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Can happen to an educational leader who can become a super manager of everything, but if they've lost this, the purpose, the principles that guide the activity in one sense they've lost their educational soul. And I had to think, well, but what would be the comparable text? The Catholics are lucky to have this because it states it beautifully. But what would be the comparative text that might be a sort of mission statement for the community school? And this is a book written by one of my colleagues, Professor David Halpin, called Hope and Education. It's a beautiful book and a profound book. It's a secular book, so it's not a faith-based book. Now it's sensitive about religious issues, but that might become, as it were, the thing that a community educational leader would want to remind his or herself about what the mission is about. So let's look at these principles then, beginning there with the education and the faith, the formation of good people. This is what the Catholic school document puts number one, that the responsibility of an educational leader is to educate in the faith and to form good people. There it's written there, you see. The Catholic school forms part of the saving mission of the church, mindful of the fact that now, although this was a reforming council, they could not get away from the domination of patriarchy. So I apologise on their behalf. It should say, of course, mindful of the fact that the human person has been redeemed by Christ. The Catholic school aims at forming, that's a key word, forming in the Christian, those particular virtues, there's another key word, which will enable him to live a new life in Christ. Let's just ponder on that. When it really comes down to it, what are we doing in education, apart from trying to pay the mortgage, what are we doing in education? We're trying to form good people. It is actually the most profound thing, and society ought to value it much more than it does. We are trying to form people who are morally and ethically and spiritually better than we are, better than their parents are, in the hope that these people that we have formed in a moral, an ethical and socially responsible way will create a better world than we have at present. So that is, you want to talk mission? That is a fine mission. That is an inspiring mission, and that is a necessary vision for every leader at whatever level to keep ours in mind. We are about the attempt to form good people. I want to focus on that word, which is much used by Catholics, of course, forming or formation. What's happening in international education in globalised education is that the language of formation, rather like the language of leadership was earlier being pushed aside with management, the language of forming has been pushed to the margins of discourse, and a new discourse has enthroned itself as the dominant language in education everywhere, and it's training. Training is the discourse that dominates. The government feeds it out all the time. It still refers, doesn't it, to the preparation of our teachers as teacher training, an absolute insult to the professional formation of teachers in this country, as if they were just to be trained. Now let's be clear. Training is important. You have to be trained to master certain skills. No-one is denying the importance of training, but training is a subset of a larger concept, which is formation of the person, and one subset of that is the training of the person in specific skills. Now what's happening under the impact of government initiatives, pressures of employers and so on is that training becomes the dominant purpose, and that is a reductionist view of what education is about. So I am suggesting to you that what an educational leader has to remember is that while the training opportunities offered in his or her school must be good, people must be trained for the challenges of the modern world, training must not become the new educational God, the formation of good people is a larger concept than the subset training. So if we turn over then to the next page, if an educational leader is taking seriously the idea of trying to form good people, people of virtue, of social responsibility and of spiritual sensitivities, then the question is, well, how is this to be done? And what it leads to, necessarily I think, is a pedagogy in our schools which has, must have, a high element of dialogue and direct experience. So training may be instructed in certain skills but formation must necessarily involve dialogue about moral, ethical, spiritual questions and, desirable, some direct experience that will illuminate those issues. So if you turn to end note number four, do you like to read that to us, Dr Tope? End note four. Yes. I get occasion of having school leaders being not only professional, but also witnesses of faith were dramatically impressed by four or six in such a situation. No, we need the quote. We need the quote that follows. Come on, Tope, are you with us? Brilliant. I do not refer to Tope's reading there, of course. I refer to what, Pope, Paul VI, that, honestly. Wonderful. If I had written a centre site that, that's all I'd like to be remembered for. What a brilliant thing to say. Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers. And if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are also witnesses. The only quotation I can think that parallels that in profundity would be the statement made by St Francis of Assisi when he sent out his friars to preach the gospel in Italy. He said to them, go and preach the gospel if necessary, use words. Brilliant. If necessary, use words. Cos he was saying to them, you will be the gospel made manifest. How you deal with people, how you are, as they perceive you, as they experience you, they will know what the gospel is. And only if you're not doing that very well will you have to use words. So what the pedagogy of formation needs is dialogue, but it means, and this, of course, is extremely demanding and asks more of many of us than perhaps we can manage, that we have to witness, as best we may, the virtues that we are wanting to form in our own students. Because remember this, you know this as experienced teachers and I know this as an experienced teacher. The slowest student in my class was the most brilliant assessor of the personalities and commitments of their teachers. They have an uncanny ability to know if you're a hypocrite, if you're there just to get the money to pay the mortgage, or if you really care about them. And if in your behaviour you show something of the virtues and morals and social responsibility that you're telling them they should show. They'll scan you and they'll know. So that's demanding. It asks a lot of us, but if we are to be effective in the formation of good people then we've got to do our best to show an example of what a good person is in practice. Okay, so that's the first one then. Formation, not training and attempting to create good people an educational leader should always be monitoring his school and his staff of course and himself of course as to whether they are achieving this aim or getting anywhere near it. Let's turn to the second. No, we won't. I'll just say a word about doing the dialogue because that is quite difficult. Just recently I said to my two grandsons once 13, once 10 would they like to question me on any issue when I was next at their house for dinner and to my horror they taught this very seriously and they had a flipchart with questions about different aspects of the Catholic religion its position on contraception, on abortion its attitude to persons who were gay and a whole range of other extremely challenging questions of course in the 13 year old said to me as I expected he would he said grandad if we are Catholics and we believe in God and we can pray at home why do we have to go to church on Sunday? I know exactly what he was after it got 13 as the age when they start saying do we have to go to church on Sunday? Anyway, I was sweating they put me on this is the voice of intelligent youth questioning critical youth and here am I a professor of education and a Catholic I should have been able I was hard pressed I did my best but I thought how good it was that we were actually speaking the things otherwise they just kept in their heads they were bringing out an I had to engage with them and then they could come back and just contrast this with how Catholic education used to be pre Vatican II when it didn't believe in the pedagogy of dialogue it believed in the pedagogy of learning your catechism and basically it was operating and it cannot be denied of my book that's this one in which by the way Dr Tope makes some brilliant statements I can tell you they're in there I demonstrate how pre Vatican II Catholicism and its pedagogy was extremely different not for it dialogue so I give you this from Franklin Court's book Angela's Ashes I'm going actually to address a large Catholic conference tomorrow in Limerick which was the city in which Frank McCaw was born and I'm wondering if I should try to say this in Limerick perhaps some of you will give me some advice after this because half of Limerick thinks he's great and half of them think he's made the town a laughing stock and it goes like this it's from Angela's Ashes but he'd been prepared for his first communion in the parish school in Limerick and it goes like this the master says we're absolutely hopeless the worst class he's ever had for preparation for Holy Communion but as sure as God made little apples he'll make Catholics of us yet he'll beat the idler out of us and the sanctifying grace into us Kevin Quigley raises his hand he always does this he can't help himself we call him Question Quigley the master doesn't like questions please sir says quickly what is sanctifying grace the master rolls his eyes to heaven with certain he's going to murder quickly there and then instead he snaps back at him never mind what sanctifying grace is Quigley that's none of your business your business is to learn your catechism and do what you're told and the trouble with the modern world is there are too many people wondering about asking questions and if I find any other boy in this class asking questions I shan't be responsible for the Cotskett but we can laugh now but it wouldn't have been funny to be in that classroom one now quickly would be esteemed for raising that question he doesn't know what sanctifying grace is he wants to open up a discussion about what it is but you see it was so easy to do the old pedagogy of indoctrination of learn your catechism because it had minimal demand on the teacher then the teacher's got to engage in discussion it's much more demanding now to be a true educational leader dealing with the questions that young people have in their heads but wonder if they can speak you've got to be open to that you've got to be open to it but it also means it's rather like if you're going to be the witness teacher of the witness it's a bigger demand on you it's a bigger demand on you because it's probing your own grip of the subject that you're teaching when they question you but I think we have an obligation to do that the second one there the second major principle then expressed in the catholic statement is preferential option for the poor but it adds the question but who are the poor there's the statement from the catholic document first and foremost the church offers its educational service to the poor or those who are deprived of help and affection or those who are far from the faith so in other words three categories of the poor were identified the economic poor the family poor those growing up in dysfunctional family homes that were loveless and gave them no support and the faith poor meaning those who were in homes where there was virtually no spiritual culture whatsoever and this little document I carry it round the world to these catholic conferences and I remind them of this because those words are very categorical first and foremost the church offers its educational service to the poor well does it in many cases where I am visiting it's doing nothing of the sort it's offering it to the rich and the powerful and the influential poor cannot get in because they cannot pay the fees that these prestigious schools are demanding so where is mission integrity there they declare a mission but they're not living it now of course it often is not the fault of the schools it's the fault of the governments of those countries America being one, France being another where the state will not pay or subsidise the schools so they have to charge so that we should have special care as educational leaders for those in our schools who are vulnerable in various ways vulnerable because they are poor vulnerable because they come from dysfunctional loveless homes and vulnerable because they come from homes that have no spiritual culture whatsoever so we have to be sensitive I think we have an obligation is what I'm saying and educational leaders at every level have an obligation to try to be aware of those in their classes that come from these disadvantaged backgrounds so the Jesuits recently in Chicago suddenly and this was a great act of educational leadership they suddenly realised that their schools that started off in the service of the Chicago poor it's true Catholic poor had over the years become in the service of the Catholic rich and they realised that their mission integrity had blown to pieces it had happened bit by bit and then in a great act of educational leadership they said right well we can't go on doing this we must establish new schools the most deprived and dangerous parts of Chicago where there are large black and Hispanic poor Hispanic populations we must open a school of it and I went only earlier this last week to a conference in London where the chief executive of this new initiative that the Jesuits have made in the USA it's called the Crystal Ray Network they're establishing these schools in really dangerous deprived areas and he told us how as an act of educational leadership they wrote to the bishop and they said we're going to open a school in this area because it's the poorest and it's the most disadvantaged and the bishop said okay we do need to have a school there the Jesuits went there they started planning and someone said to the educational leader of the Jesuit at that time but it's a good idea but how are we going to pay for it the managerial question has to come in there and he said we'll pray hard we'll pray hard he said God will provide and then they found that all sorts of American corporate leaders were moved by this and massive donations came in and the Crystal Ray Network is now spreading across the US into the poorest area now no education manager would ever have taken it on crazy venture just look at the figures it's not going to work but an educational leader who knew that there were disadvantaged people who needed the service that the Jesuits could offer said we'll do it and it will work and it has worked so that second principle then of always being sensitive to the needs of those who are vulnerable and trying to find ways to deal with their needs is important turn now please to the next page where it says education as solidarity and community it also says there against the culture of inquisitive individualism now there's this quote again from the Catholic text the very pattern of the Christian life draws them to commit themselves to serve God in their brethren and to make the world a better place to live in so an educational leader must be aware that there is a growing tendency in our globalised international culture for inquisitive individualism everybody wants to own more and more possess more and more and this cult of the possessive individual seems to be spreading everywhere now what is needed against that emphasis is a counter cultural commitment which tries to get our young people to understand the importance of community and solidarity that that is the way we're going to build a better world by community and solidarity not by aggressive selfish individualism acquiring for me so as you know in this country we had the horror of hearing Prime Minister of the time Margaret Thatcher making the infamous statement there is no such thing as society there are only individuals and families how could she say this there is no such thing as society there are only individuals and families if there is no such thing as society there cannot be a concept of the common good it's gone there cannot be a concept of a citizen because a citizen takes responsibilities beyond just his own family and his immediate community he takes it for the nation and at its best and this is what we should be doing more and more in our schools in the globalised age to develop the idea that we are all responsible for those in the wider world we should be at our best citizens of the world so the understanding of world poverty should be a crucial part of our curriculum and our young people should be encouraged to think about what they can do in their adult life to do something about that situation so I think the idea of education of solidarity in community is one of course that will be held obviously in community schools as much as in faith based schools I think the difference there might be that if the faith based schools who after all preach this as of their faith aren't practising it then indeed they are hypocrites because they are not practising what their religion is supposed to hold out as an important part of their religious faith Shall we go on then to number four which is education and the common good now it says the service for the common good should be a defining characteristic of the Catholic school and the Catholic missions in England and Wales in 1996 issued a document called the common good and the Catholic Church's social teaching and in 1997 they issued a document called the common good in education the Conservatives immediately said both of these documents are ideological support for the Labour Party wasn't that interesting the bishop said absolutely not what we are saying is that education should have a moral message that is about trying to get people to work for the common good not just for themselves so the current policy you see of establishing academies in this country now there is an interesting policy initiative for us to think about and talk about after this presentation will the establishment of academies enhance and strengthen the common good and strengthen our present prime ministers hope for establishing the big society what a long way we've come from Mesistatia there is no such thing as society now we have the big society big change there or will it just help the particular good of in specific locations that's something I'd like to discuss with you when we get into the discussion period so let's turn now to point 5 academic education as a means and not an end now this is a big challenge for all educational leaders at this time the getting of the best academic results you can is important certainly all Christians and all those of other faiths will surely endorse the notion that it is our duty to develop the talents of our young people all of them to the maximum possible degree so we should celebrate it as they develop their talents and as we can show that they are doing well in their tests and in their examinations but you see that might satisfy an educational manager because it looks good position on the lead table measurable, good publicity should have a good effect on enrolments and so forth but the position of an educational leader must always be to say but our academic achievement is not an end in itself it's the means to an end just look at what that quote says there education is not given for the purposes of gaining power but as an aid towards a fuller understanding of and communion with man events and things knowledge is not to be considered now I think they did go a bit over the top here I would have said knowledge is not to be considered only but you know I suppose if you're a celibate priest in Rome and everything's provided you can say this more calmly than we have to pay the mortgages knowledge is not to be considered only for material prosperity and success but as a call to serve and that should say to be responsible for others so in other words what an educational leader is trying to do is not just to celebrate hitting those target figures as an ended itself but to think that if we are developing our young people their intelligence, their skills their fluency, their public confidence all of those things we are liberating and that's good that's what we're here to do but let them understand that they have got those developments those talents now developed to do some good in the world with it it's then to apply it so as I have it there at the bottom it is not sufficient simply to develop the intelligence, talents and skills of young people on an individual or self-fulfillment basis this could lead to the creation of talented and clever but also self-centred and materially inquisitive individuals with no regard for any conception of a common good so I always say that the Catholic formula here and it surely must be the community school formula here is development of talents plus commitment to the common good or a concept of service equals the good citizen and if you lose the second part of the formula and all you have is the development of talents hooray, we've hit the targets but if that has not been constantly related to an idea of serving others with the talent you've got then what shall it profit us I'm going to stop there because I see several people yawning and that's all the good sign so those are the five fundamental principles I'm giving you that relate to mission integrity and I'm now open to take questions from you or comments