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The Education of Service Children - the boarding option - Introduction
Service Children's Education (SCE)
CEAS
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THE MORAL AND SPIRITUAL CLIMATE IN A
BOARDING COMMUNITY
– Mark Aitken, Headmaster of St Lawrence College, Ramsgate
he lasting impact of a good education
runs far deeper than achieving the best set
of examination results at A-level. There is no
doubt that academic results are important, even
vital, for the development of a successful career
but they do not shape, form, create the adult
man or woman. Parents expect an independent
school to provide their child with the best
academic profile they can achieve but evidence
suggests that parents are looking for much more
than that when they select a school for their
child. The moral aspects of schooling and
inculcation of values are high on the agenda of
parents searching for the ‘right school’. Parents
want an environment that will provide a moral
compass and create spiritual roots.
The question arises as to how parents will
know about this aspect of a school’s life.
Academic ‘value-added’ can be measured,
ranked and put into league tables. Moral,
spiritual and ethical ‘value-added’ is much
harder to measure. So how do schools produce
a climate that develops this vital moral compass
and provides the spiritual roots that, in time,
will allow a man or woman to stand on firm
ground in an ever changing world? For this to
happen, there must be a desire to place this
spiritual dimension right at the heart of the
school’s life. A spirituality that will not only
touch every pupil but have a lasting impact
upon them must quietly infuse every part of
school life.
I am sure that most parents can see how a
set of moral and spiritual values can be
delivered in chapel, but how does this happen in
other areas of school life? In practical terms I
think it works like this. In drama, a pupil tries
to imagine himself as another and, therefore,
enters into the other person’s experiences of life.
In mathematics, a teacher encourages the class
not just to do the calculation but to consider its
shape and pattern. The geographer raises vital
questions about injustice. The historian
demands that his pupils search for the motives
behind the actions leading to insights into
human nature. The biologist helps the class to
ponder the origins of the universe and sends
them off to religious studies lessons full of
questions. All these experiences encourage
pupils to consider the world through other
people’s eyes; to think about the nature of the
universe; the values by which people and
nations live and almost imperceptibly a value
system is created. In a good school pupils ought
regularly to sit silently in a lesson overwhelmed
by the immensity, the beauty or the challenge of
what they have just heard their teacher say.
The creation of this atmosphere is also
revealed in the way adults and students interact.
Teachers must always remember that, in the
fullness of time, their pupils are more likely to
remember more about the way they treated
them than the exact content of their lessons.
Relationships are as much a source of the
spiritual and moral atmosphere of a school as
the courses taught. Although the moral code of
a school will be defined in some document or
other, it is the way the school lives together as a
community that reveals its actual moral values.
No doubt you will be considering various
schools for your child. You will make decisions
about the academic nature of the school. You
will ponder matters of location, the resources on
offer, and the dreaded matter of fees but how
will you judge the school’s ability to develop
your child’s personality? What do prospectuses
and websites say about the values of a school –
both explicitly in their choice of words but also
implicitly in the areas they have chosen to
highlight or gloss over? All material produced
by a school will have been carefully chosen,
pored over, before being released into the public
arena. It is, therefore, value-laden even if not
consciously considered as such by its writers!
While reading it, ask yourself the question, if
my child went to this school what values would
he or she acquire in that process? Then, go and
see if the living experience confirms or changes
your view.
What values do you think the head sets as
the priorities for the school? Hopefully, you will
meet pupils – what might be the reasons if you
don’t? What do you sense really matters to
them? Do they feel as if they are part of a school
that encourages a sense of respect for other
people? Do you think they have time to be still,
to ponder values as well as being kept active and
busy? What opportunities are there for them to
consider specific questions about values and
moral dilemmas? What kind of influence do
you think they would have on your child either
as a peer or as a person in a position of
authority/responsibility? As you tour the
school, what do you observe about the
relationships? Do pupils, and pupils and staff
talk easily together? Is there a sense of openness
that would allow awkward and searching
questions to be asked? Always ask the pupil
who they would turn to if they had a problem.
It usually produces very revealing answers!
Spirituality and moral codes are there to
help us through the difficult times of life but
they should also be about a sense of wonder at
life and the creation of safe environments in
which people can feel secure. So, ask yourself,
does the school seem a place where people
appreciate life and smile easily? Certainly the
moral climate of a school, the values it lives by
and the sense of the ‘spiritual’ that it either does
or does not engender, will have a lasting effect
on your child. The world in which they will be
adults will be more complex and demanding
than we can even begin to imagine. The best
examination results will be important but a
good reliable moral compass and deep spiritual
roots will be vital.
The Revd Mark Aitken has been Headmaster of
St Lawrence College, Ramsgate, where General
Sir Richard Dannatt was a pupil, since 2004. He
had previously been at Sherborne School for 12
years as Chaplain.
