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Common Good Schools update – Summer 2024
Our Project Leader, Jo Stow, provides our latest update.
At the end of the academic year, there is plenty to celebrate!
Over the last twelve months at Common Good Schools we are proud that five of our partners have completed the 10 week programme at least once, and we are thrilled to have welcomed two new schools from our first multi-academy trust, and completed their induction process. We are excited that a new partner in Italy is joining us in September, the Diocese of Modena over ten months will be running the programme with post-confirmation young people from parishes across the diocese. In addition, we have built a new online portal, written and disseminated two free resources, and held our first CPD sessions for our partner schools. In terms of our goals for the coming year, we want to recruit at least ten more partner schools, and we plan to research, develop and pilot a version of the programme for primary schools.
There have been many highlights which I’ve shared in updates over the year. In this edition, I would love to tell you about a joyful occasion that T4CG’s founder director Jenny Sinclair and I attended at Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral in late June. We were invited to attend the Service of Blessing for our newest partner, the All Saints Multi Academy Trust (ASMAT), led by Archbishop Malcolm McMahon OP and Rev Canon Stuart Haynes. Along with fellow guests, we joined staff and students from across the Trust at the special service, which featured many young people from across the Trust playing their part in song and the spoken word. It was wonderful to meet ASMAT’s CEO, Heather Duggan, many of her leadership team and the Directors of Education for both the Anglican and Catholic dioceses of Liverpool.
It was striking that the ASMAT vision is rooted in a history shared with Together for the Common Good (T4CG). For those of you who are new to our work, T4CG is inspired by an unlikely partnership between church leaders in Liverpool a generation ago. Jenny’s father, the Anglican Bishop David Sheppard and his close friend the Catholic Archbishop Derek Worlock saw that God’s reconciling love was calling them to work together for the common good of the city. Seeing themselves as brothers in Christ, they prayed regularly together and their groundbreaking partnership was characterised by a unique combination of gifts from their respective Christian traditions. They saw their work in terms of reconciliation and advocated the “outward-facing church” standing in solidarity with poor communities. Their joint vision resonates strongly with the body of thinking known as Catholic social thought, from which we derive a simple Common Good Thinking framework. You can read more about our history here.
This vision underpins both Common Good Schools and All Saints Multi Academy Trust. Jointly sponsored by both the Diocese and the Archdiocese of Liverpool, the Trust is inspired by the ecumenical vision of Bishops’ Sheppard and Worlock. As Heather Duggan says, their ethos is “we are ‘stronger and better together’ placing partnership working at the heart of what we do! Community is at the heart of our family of Academies, and we are proud to work closely in partnership with the communities that we serve.”
Speaking about joining Common Good Schools, the Trust’s Chaplain, Kasia Boydell said, “I’m so excited to start!” Kasia and her colleagues will launch the ten week programme in September.
During the service, Jenny and I were struck by a wonderful poem written and recited by students from Hope Academy. It beautifully articulates the hopes and dreams of the two Bishops in the past and the young people and their teachers today.
It started with them
It started with them.
Two men of different denominations: one God.
They showed us that we are stronger together.
Friends united by Christ.
They proved that life is better together,
and that what it comes down to is us in our communities.
It started with them.
It continues with us.
Aspiring for ourselves.
Aspiring for community.
Aspiring for unity.
Previously separated, now united.
Together in strength, no matter the differences.
We thank them for their commitment
for their inclusion and leadership.
We celebrate them in our own acts of service,
with positive diversity and continuing partnerships.
It started with them.
It continues with us.
Poem written by Lily and Adeline, Hope Academy, Newton-le-Willows
I am sure you agree, that the poem expresses a beautiful resonance with our work helping schools become a force for the common good in their neighbourhoods. This vision inspires us as we look forward to developing relationships with all our partner schools in September.
Thank you for reading this short update – just a taste of the wonderful things that are happening. We’d love you to help us encourage more schools to embark on the Common Good Schools programme. If you know of teachers, chaplains or governors of a school who would be interested, please share this link where they can learn more and download a free sample pack to try in school, and also point them them to register for our next free information session is in September – details below.
“So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.” Romans 12:5
Finally, please would you pray for
- Secure funding so that we can work with more schools and develop materials for primary schools.
- New schools to join, especially in the North West, Yorkshire and in the South East.
Jo Stow
Common Good Schools Project Leader
COME AND SEE SESSION
Our next free online information session is on: Tuesday 24th September at 3.45 pm. This is an open invitation to school staff right across England and Wales. There will be a short presentation giving an overview of the Common Good Schools programme with a sneak peek behind the paywall at the resources on the Common Good Schools website, and a Q & A.
Click here to book a place: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/common-good-schools-information-session-tickets-939389999777?aff=oddtdtcreator
Do you have a link with your local school? Are you a parent, student, teacher, senior leader, director of an academy trust, trustee or governor? We find the best way to engage is via a personal introduction. For more details about the programme, please visit the Common Good Schools website where you can book a call with Jo Stow and download a free sample pack to try at your school.