Annual Conference – Educating with Hope in our Hearts and Hands

It was fantastic to re-convene our annual Schools’ Conference on 6-7 October at the Hayes Conference Centre in Derbyshire. With all schools represented and having participated in a beautiful opening reflection we were delighted to open the conference with an address from our friend and guest, Brian Garrone, Director of Communication and Global Engagement & Executive Officer of EREBB. Having been in Pope Francis’s company just a few days previously, he was able to give us direct words from His Holiness who urged us, as a group of Catholic schools to go out and make the changes necessary in order to respond to the the cry of the Earth and to the cry of the poor. Our first day continued with input from Brother Brian Bond of ERI and from Paul Turner of the Ministry of Eco Education who both pushed our schools to react to the urgent need for us all to address sustainability in a focused, prioritised way. In groups schools shared how they have reimagined practices, become more resilient and are recovering after the COVID pandemic. Our evening was spent nurturing our wellbeing with life coaching sessions on the Wheel of Life and Journaling. Our ‘thought walk’ that evening was a chance to engage with messages that had been sent to us by EREBB colleagues from across the globe. Hopefully providence allocated an appropriate message to each delegate; our delegates were encouraged to respond by email and strike up a new bond across the miles with another Edmund Rice educator who had taken the time to share their thoughts with us at our gathering.  Finally guests relaxed and socialised to round off a busy first day of conference.

Day two was focused around our responses; Kavita Das, Principal of St John’s College in Chandigarh joined us by zoom to explain how their Teacher-Foster Carer scheme works and how this helps to support a large number of marginalised families and for their children to be educated at the College. we went on to hear from Jonathan Webster, Principal at St Mary’s Prep and how the staff their have committed to become a deaf-friendly community in response to one family’s request to educate their son at this school. The amazing commitment of St Mary’s Prep staff and the impact this has had on the whole school gave us all very moving and tangible example of how Education as a Christian Calling, inclusivity and Edmund’s Charism are being lived out at this wonderful school. Another fantastic example of how the Eight Essentials are being animated and lived was presented to us by Patricia Minogue, Assistant Headteacher at Runnymede St Edward’s. The newly created Magna Carta Awards programme has engaged a huge number of their pupils in living lives of love and service and in showing their faith by the way that they live. This ambitious scheme is developing confident leaders who are being encouraged to have Concern for the Whole Person and to respond to Those in Need. Another inspiring response from our schools was outlined by Caroline Cirino, Director of Sixth Form at St Jospeh’s College. Caroline showed how their school had responded in a creative and resilient way to COVID’s impact on the Overseas Immersion programme. St Joseph’s developed a Domestic Immersion replacement for their sixth formers. The impact on students has been just as profound when they experienced extreme need more locally in Irish and UK cities. We also heard from St Anselm’s College students Thomas Jones and Harvey McGrath who spoke stirringly of their journey to raise awareness of the Climate Crisis in their school and beyond.

Our delegates left with many insights, opportunities to build relationships and also some challenges; one being to create sustainable schools with a focus on helping biodiversity loss. A quote from one delegate:

There was a real sense of the network being ‘alive’ and I felt that impact very positively