Strict recruitment criteria in Catholic schools have contributed to a headship crisis in some parts of the country. One in 10 schools loses its head teacher every year, according to research conducted by The Times, with faith schools in particular struggling to attract high-calibre candidates because of the requirement that heads be members of their faith.
With regard to Catholic schools, teachers in senior management positions – the head, deputy and head of RE – must be practising Catholics, which at the discretion of the diocesan bishop may exclude the divorced and remarried and married gay people.
Mike Craven, chairman of governors at the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School, west London, said that recruitment was a problem for all schools but was a specific issue for Catholic schools. “The pool of talent is bound to be smaller but we’ve always managed to recruit excellent people in the end. What that shows the importance of is investment in middle management, in training and development so that there’s a supply of people who are appropriately qualified,” he said.
In London, he said, that problem was exacerbated by a lack of affordable housing. “You can often recruit young teachers but as soon as they marry and have kids they want to move to somewhere they can afford a house,” he explained.
Cardinal Vaughan’s headmaster Paul Stubbings agreed. “The biggest problem we face in recruitment is the recruitment crisis itself,” he said. “Inevitably, the pool of applicants is smaller in Catholic schools because heads, deputy heads and heads of RE quite rightly have to be Catholic: the preservation of schools’ Catholic identity is of prime importance. But the biggest problem isn’t that dry spot – it’s the general drought itself.”
The Catholic Education Service (CES) said that Catholic schools relied on strong and committed leadership. A spokesman said: “Issues surrounding recruitment affect all schools, not just Catholic ones. Currently just 4 per cent of Catholic primary schools have a vacant head position.”
Paul Barber, director of the CES, defended schools’ recruitment criteria, pointing out that you did not have to be a Catholic to teach in a Catholic school. “However, to ensure that the Catholic ethos remains at the core of everything the Church’s schools do, bishops maintain that senior leadership roles should be practising members of the Catholic Church.”
His comments followed a report from the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, which complained that the provisions drawn up to ensure that head teachers of faith schools would preserve their religious character were too broad. In particular it warned that they seemed “to permit a Catholic school to dismiss a gay or lesbian teacher, a divorced teacher or a married teacher conducting a relationship outside of marriage”.
Loading ...
