Encouragement for church schools as author and sports professionals address major education conference

Community Matters conference brings heads, governors and teachers together at Rudding Park

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Children’s author and parish priest, G.P.Taylor (pictured above, right), and sports coach Bryan Mason, were among the contributors to a major education conference which has taken place at Rudding Park  near Harrogate. Organised by the joint Education team for Ripon and Leeds and Bradford dioceses, the theme of the conference was ‘Community Matters’, and brought together headteachers, senior managers, governors and church representatives from throughout the region to consider how church schools interact with their local areas.

Diocesan Director of Education, Clive Sedgewick (pictured above, left), said that the Conference had an important pastoral role for those involved in education. “We try to stage a conference about once every eighteen months and we consider it to be one of the highpoints of our work because it brings together schools from both dioceses... The pastoral nature of this conference is that unlike, perhaps, some local authority conferences where headteachers go away thinking ‘I must now do this that and the other’, they leave here thinking ‘I have been affirmed for what I am achieving already’ and that encourages them to think ‘I can do this next’.”

Listen to Clive Sedgewick, interviewed by John Carter, on the conference and morale in church schools...

GP Taylor, author of Shadowmancer which is to be released as a film, had been invited to lead a workshop on the importance of Christian literature in church schools. He is currently launching a new series of books, the Doppelganger Chronicles,  which have been written to particularly attract older teenage readers with reading challenges and produced in a style designed to help those with dyslexic tendencies. Other workshop leaders included Bryan Mason of the Higher Sports foundation who talked on  introducing children to the thrills of sport while instilling Christian values and understanding, and Sarah Fishwick, Global Education Officer and author of ‘Every Child of God Matters Everywhere’

Keynote speakers challenged the delegates to be positive about the unique contribution that church schools can make in society. David Whittington (pic below left) , head of school development for the Church of England, said that the church and church schools should use the political agenda which he said was still very favourable towards them. 

"Church schools have had huge support from successive Secretaries of State," he argued, "The reality is immeasurably more supportive than you might guess from the media".

He also said that the media are sometimes alarmist about the alleged separatist nature of Muslim schools: "There are in fact 10 Muslim schools in the country, and 5,000 Church schools. Muslims don't want to run ghetto schools: they value enormously partnerships with Christian schools."

He was followed by the Principal of the Bradford Academy, Gareth Dawkins (pic below centre) who challenged the audience to believe in what they were doing and use the ‘ethos’ of the school to raise standards, rather than simply focussing on targets. He argued that if schools set their values and their attitudes correctly children would feel affirmed and valued and become good learners because of that.

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