THE MORAL AND SPIRITUAL CLIMATE IN A BOARDING COMMUNITY

Mark Aitken, Headmaster of St Lawrence College Ramsgate

The 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 what 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 which 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 which 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 that 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 Dannett was a former pupil, since 2004. He had previously been at Sherborne School for twelve years as Chaplain.