How does a school cope with the murder of a teacher?

The horrific murder of Ann Maguire, a much loved teacher, by one of her pupils in a Leeds Catholic school, has shocked and bewildered the country.

How can such disastrous events happen in a school? How can the school and its members recover? Does the Catholic basis of the school help it cope?

There are similarities with what happened some years ago outside St George’s School in Maida Vale, north London, when its headmaster, Philip Lawrence, was murdered. The two dreadful deaths have different contexts but a sense of shock and deep sadness in each is common.

This week the teenage boy who killed Mrs Maguire was sentenced to life in jail. The conclusion of the due legal processes provides the grieving community with a sense of closure, but this is only the beginning of a long and complex journey back to some kind of normality.

Why these things happened might never be fully understood, notwithstanding the acres of comment in the papers. However, for a Catholic school, its very essence can provide its community with the faith and hope to move forward out of trauma.

St George’s had to make this journey having lost its popular and committed head teacher. The school fell into a dark period resulting in poor behaviour and restlessness by pupils and loss of confidence by their teachers. It was a failing school and the continuing adverse media coverage, although understandable, contributed to the negative mood. Indeed, the school was truly overcome by the enormity of what had happened.

The recovery required healing, the path to which was different for pupils, staff and parents.

This process was aided by wise and sensitive inputs from teachers, assisted by the school chaplain. Without a chaplain this essential spiritual nurturing would have been diminished. His emphasis on the prayer life of the individual, regular Masses for different year groups, tutor group prayer meetings, prayers at the start of teachers’ meetings, and the emphasis of the joyousness of the church liturgy as the year unfolded provided a structure for personal reflection and growth for all in the community, whatever their faith.

From a place where spirits were low and expectations negative, the school gradually came to find joy in its day-to-day life. This joy could be seen as emerging spirituality. Put simply, pupils, staff and parents began to experience love, goodness, beauty and a sense of wonder and awe – an awareness that there is more to life than current difficulties, however acute.

Staff had to also recover the children’s interest in learning, motivate them for examination demands, reassure parents concerned with safety issues, and work with governors to take the school forward. The reanimated Catholic life of the school gave confidence to leaders in addressing these issues.

Throughout the recovery period, despite the passing of time, it was imperative to be sensitive to the sadness the school felt about Philip’s loss, and to do this in a manner which pupils could understand. Young people responded to the idea that he might be best remembered by everyone working together to create the successful happy school that he would have wanted. Opportunities to remember Philip prayerfully were also important. We introduced a motto for the school – “moving forward together”.

It was a hard journey but the Catholic nature of the school was key to helping it move on from trauma.

Corpus Christi must be in our prayers as it makes it journey as a faith school in the aftermath of its own tragedy.

Lady Marie Stubbs is a retired headmistress whose account of her 17-month tenure at St George’s, Ahead of the Class, was retold in a film for television starring Julie Walters