Education as a Christian Calling – a Vocation Story

Louise Baines, Head of Sixth Form, Assistant Headteacher at St Anselm’s College

At the age of 7, in the midst of a school science experiment involving water that was going badly wrong (thanks to a leak in the plastic bowl I was using), I had a proper lightbulb moment. When I grew up, I was going to be a teacher. Total clarity.

In the years that followed, I never wavered. There were no teachers in my family, I was a first-generation University graduate and only one of my grandparents saw one of their grandchildren (me) graduate. That initial conviction was a true blessing, giving me 11 years to watch and learn from some truly remarkable (and occasionally very dull) teachers. I learned the power of humour from my favourite Geography teacher, I learned that the smallest teacher, who didn’t really ever raise her voice was someone our sports teams would run through a brick wall for. And although a cradle Catholic, I learned the power God would have in my life from a brilliant RE teacher as well as a special Parish community, St Matthew’s in Winton.

From the first day of my PGCE course I knew teaching really was my vocation and what I was meant to do. My dad has always believed that if you let God guide you, you won’t go far wrong, and again, by luck and the Spirit, I was blessed with the two Catholic schools I have worked in. St John Bosco in Croxteth was a remarkable place I spent 13 happy years at. I was one of 6 NQTs who started there in 1993 and ‘the QT’s’ or ‘cuties’ as we became known, became firm friends and were moulded by Sr Helen Murphy and the Salesian sisters. Her, her staff (and the students) shaped a great deal of the teacher I became; and I will always be grateful to her and them. There were students there who came from absolute poverty and others who didn’t. As a Head of Year, I was exposed to families really living on the margins, and for whom education was the only legal road out of poverty. As educators we had to get it right. We took pupils away on ‘Gifted and Talented’ weekends with neighbouring schools, and I was inspired by two remarkable teachers from Crocky Comp who always brought the children from their school who were clearly neither gifted nor talented! One day, really irritated that these kids were definitely not fitting the brief on a weekend in London, I asked them why they brought them. They looked at me with pity and said if they didn’t, how else would these children ever experience anything culturally different? They also said it might be too late to change the direction of those kids lives, but they were focused on the children that those kids would have and hoped that they would encourage them to value a good education. Something that Cathy and Ronnie would not see but hoped they had sown the good seed for. Inspirational women who both John Bosco and Edmund Rice would undoubtedly have applauded.

I also had experiences there you could never buy. I saw Sister Act at the cinema with 6 nuns, I was Colleen Rooney’s Head of Year, telling Wayne Rooney’s earlier girlfriend Jenny, confidently, that many young boys thought they were going to make it as a professional footballer and ‘her Wayne’ would likely be one of them who didn’t, and that she (and he) would be better served getting a good education. I was half right there at least!

Then on to Saint Anselm’s; another remarkable place where I intended on staying 2/3 years and ended up staying for nearly 20! More inspirational people and opportunities I could not have imagined as a child followed. Visiting Sierra Leone numerous times and being able to help support a community in Makeni during Ebola and the mud slides, working with asylum seekers and the homeless, being part of Friday Club. All absolute privileges (encouraged by Simon Duggan) to really understand and advocate for marginalised groups and bring that learning back into my school and my students; the young men who will hopefully be the moral leaders of the future, because in part of their Anselmian education.

So as my career winds down, this much I know. The more involved I got in each school, the more I got back. The more I said yes, the more incredible opportunities presented themselves. The more I let go and let God (as dad would advocate), the less I worried about things, praying that He would guide me to say and do the right thing. I’ve been fortunate to work for four Headteachers, all of whom I have respected. Working in a Senior Leadership team at St Anselm’s has illustrated clearly to me the incredible toll being a Head must take, and how grateful we should be to good Headteachers. It is an often thankless task I think made more difficult by an Inspection system that seems less and less fit for purpose. But I have seen real courage and decency from them all at different points and been inspired by them, and in Serena I know that the Spirit will continue to burn bright at St. Anselm’s.

And now it’s time for me to square the circle and give something back to my parents, who gave me a real grounding in faith, even in the times I didn’t want it! Who supported my ambition and career. And who recognised too that I had a vocation. For me, Education really was a Christian calling. It’s been a wonderful career.

All of us in the Edmund Rice Network wish Louise a long and happy retirement as she concludes her time at St Anselm’s this term. She has been a truly dedicated member of our Edmund Rice family—creating countless opportunities for students through our Edmund Rice Office and embodying the Charism of Blessed Edmund in all she does.