Deputy Headspace

Charlotte Slattery, Deputy Headteacher, St Joseph’s College, Stoke-on-Trent

I remember thinking, in my interview in 2009, “If this school could bottle whatever magic goes on here, they would make a fortune’.”  Soon, I learned that this ‘magic’ was the ethos of the Christian Brothers.  Since 2009 I have been an English teacher, the school’s SENDCO, an Assistant Headteacher, and for the past eight years, Deputy Headteacher.  Through this period, there have been many changes to education policy, subject specifications, research and pedagogy and staffing.  However, what is noticeable to me is that the common thread and therefore stability, is always the specific Catholic nature of being in an Edmund Rice school.

My time at St Joseph’s – to date – has meant I have had the most wonderful opportunities to work not only with our most vulnerable students, but also (as PICCL) to be directly part of the shaping and enhancing of the Catholic ethos that we are all so proud of.  I am a firm believer that education is about so much more than academic achievement, and having a hand in forming our young people into decent human beings with a keen sense of social justice, is what fulfils me on the days when Year 11 mocks need marking!  This is why, leading our West African immersion experience is, I feel, a complete privilege but also absolutely essential.  I will forever be grateful for the exposure to another culture, so very different to our own, where, with time, simplicity, and a little dancing, you can learn so much about yourself and others.  After all is said and done, isn’t that what education is all about?