Cut Off Floating in Space *

Diocesan RE Leaders Meeting:

– Inspections: Lessons to Learn

Zoom Conference

Record of Meeting 29th February 2024.

13.49hr – 16.03hr

Chair: Beryl from Accounts

Secretary: Angela from resources

Logistics and Communications: Michael from Site Services

Welcome from chair.

Welcome to this Zoom Conference all you Heads of RE, representing every Catholic school in the archdiocese, apart from those schools who have not nominated anyone.

My name is Beryl Snodgrass, a fairly high-up officer in Accounts.

As you know, I have been appointed to be in charge of keeping Heads of RE informed, updated and supported when it comes to stuff to do with Catholic Schools Inspections. I am the RE and Inspection Maestro, as it were.

I am another example of the process now established in the diocese that we do not appoint to the top role in a MAC just because the person was once a teacher and an expert on teaching and being in charge of Catholic schools. We are all better off with a broader range of expertise to draw on, rather than putting a narrow focus on stuff that any teacher can deal with. I know enough about RE to be in charge of you. The school I went to was fairly hot on teaching RE. You won’t hear me mixing up the Old and New Testaments.

Today, I am joined by two colleagues who are on their own screens for you to see for the first time. There is Angela from resources who is waving at you all. You can see Michael from Site Services too. Together we are the RE Inspection Service Crew at your service.   

We have a lot to get through, so let’s get cracking.

Hundreds of questions were sent in about the inspection experience. With so many questions to choose from we assigned a number to each of you. If your number is called you get to ask your question. Interventions and follow-up questions from the floor will be accepted if they are sensible, not contentious, don’t embarrass anyone and don’t take long. Right, first question please.

Oh, I nearly forgot to tell you, please make sure your mike is switched on if you’re talking and want us to hear you. Right, first question please. Number 79.

Question 79: Who checks the reports? Is it someone in DES or is it London? How does that person know that what is in the report is true if they have never been to our school and don’t know if the Lead Inspector is telling the truth in her report? Does he check her notes to make sure the judgments are correct? We couldn’t check her notes, even though we asked several times to see what she was writing. She just gave her conclusions at the end. We said she got some of them wrong. She denied this and said we were overreacting.

The officer from our MAC said not to kick up a fuss as we have a bid going through for building work and the MAC wanted nothing to go wrong with that.

Chair: What makes you think anyone at DES should read the inspectors notes? All our inspectors are honest and don’t tell porkies. Thank you, anyway. We will pass on your question.

Hold on. Someone has a flashing hand. That means you want to speak. You, sir, the chap sitting in front of a beach scene. I can’t hear you, sir, you are on mute. Press the button on your mike. Do it now… I still can’t hear you. I can see you waving but don’t know what you are saying if you are on mute. Michael, you are in charge of technical support. Can you help?

Michael from Site Services: I don’t do techy stuff. I am responsible for toilets, doors, roofs and heating. I make sure no roof has fallen in and killed anyone.

Can anyone lip read?

Maybe he could write his question on a piece of paper and hold in front of his camera.

I usually switch off at the wall, unplug and restart if my computer goes kerplunk.

Chair: Oh, it looks like the problem is solved. His screen has gone blank. Next question please.

Question 198: How come some schools get good reports when they did not join the local MAC like we were forced to do?

Chair: Angela, you are from resources. Would you like to answer that one?

Angela from Resources: No, not really. It’s a delicate area.

Chair: Thank you, Angela, that was most helpful. We will pass the question to the top people. Next question.

Question 153: How come the inspectors go on about the Church’s Social Teaching and ask how we deal with poor people? We don’t have poor people where my school is, so it is an unfair question for us.

I told the one interrogating me that we deal with other social issues but she wasn’t interested. She said I had to say we send parcels to the poor at Christmas and on Bonfire night because they would be good examples she could use in the report.

I kept telling her we didn’t have poor people but we do other Social Teaching to do with care for creation, the common good, dignity, solidarity, peace and stuff to do with making people better off and giving them health and happiness based on respect and tolerance and kindness.

She said that didn’t count. She told me, if she couldn’t write we have Mini Vinnies and give parcels out at Christmas to poor people in India, then we are not doing Social Teaching stuff.

Is that any reason for giving us only a grade 2 for being Catholic when we are the only Catholic school in the town? People fight each other and bribe us to get their kids into our school because of our brilliant results and none of our kids are on drugs, or in county line gangs.

Chair: Thank you for that. Personally, I am not into Social Teaching but I will raise the point with the inspection regulating authority.

Question from unnamed screen: Who is that regulating authority?

Chair looks at Angela: Angela?

Angela from resources: Maybe the DES? I don’t know. Complaints come to my department but we use due process in judging if the school is being malicious in their accusation. Then we judge if the fuss will damage the good name of the diocese if the complaint goes ahead.

Michael from Site Services. Beryl, sorry to interrupt, but we have lost two other callers as well as the bloke on the beach with the dead mike.

Chair: Try to get him back, Michael. Next question.

Question 3: Why do the inspectors spend most of the time interrogating us as heads of RE about Mini Vinnies. Why don’t the inspectors ask the head and the governors about how they run the school as a Catholic school so we can concentrate on questions about teaching RE?

Why ask us about saying prayers? We are not responsible for prayers. Other staff have to say prayers but they get out of it by answering questions saying “oh I am not a RC person so I get the kids to say the prayers”.

We get stuck with everything. We teach RE. We are not responsible for the prayers or the spiritual life or the moral life or things kids should do to get to heaven when they die.

Chair: I think the theological stuff in that question goes well beyond what any of us here can manage. We will refer it to the top people. Next question, please. Keep your questions short. Stick to one point so we know what you are asking instead of meandering all over the place. Maybe we will be able to count on getting home before tomorrow?

Question 109: I speak on behalf of the Evangelical Group of RE Teachers Uniting to Preserve the Purity of Doctrinal Teaching of the Catholic Church, known for short as EGRETUPPDTCC.

We deplore the way inspectors criticise our RE syllabus and expect us to introduce modern thinking and hypothetical stuff when we know beyond dispute what is the true teaching of the Church.

They should set aside the words his holiness Pope Francis misspoke when appeasing the GAY people movement and pandering to married couples who choose the easy way out and get divorced because of their sexual weaknesses leading to illicit and immoral couplings. How can we act as if they were still good Catholics living by the unchanging traditions of the Church running back over two thousand and twenty-four years.

Do these inspectors not realise the impact on us of adopting such a questionable theological stance?

To give one example. We teach the literal truth of the bible, both old and new testaments. But now we are expected to change tack and explain that the creation account in the opening books of the bible give only a metaphor about how the world started and how it will end.

We know how it was made. God made it over a few days and didn’t let big bangs, or earthquakes, or environmental disasters get in his way. We teach this being the actual true description of what happened. As a result, our young children draw lovely pictures of Noah in his ark laughing at the sinners drowning and being eaten alive by monsters. What will the children draw now if Noah disappears?

Don’t overlook that God could have sent Jesus on earth without a mother or father but he chose to give him a mother so we could say that is God showing us the way women should live. And note, God gave Jesus a woman and a father, not a mother and a mother, or a father and a father.

None of this true, verified truth in the bible, comes out in an inspection.

Instead, all we get is stuff about social justice, Mini Vinnies, groups for charity, environmental concern and other weird stuff. We know God will destroy the world but your inspectors expect us to teach we can stop God by throwing our plastic bottles in special skips.

Our association, the EGRETUPPDTCC, has set up links with evangelical groups in Poland and Hungary as well as with active evangelical groups in the USA fighting to keep America a proper Christian country. That would be a more fruitful activity to comment on in our inspections.

We belong to the Church Militant not the Church Apologetic. None of that comes out in our inspections.

Chair: that was a bit longer than I asked for but you are entitled to voice your opinion. We will pass on your questions to the right authorities since they go over my head. Right, one last question.

Michael from Site Services. Beryl, sorry to interrupt again, but we have lost more attendees. Their screens have gone blank.

Chair: How many? Which ones?

Angela from resources: Looks like all the schools in the MACs in Birmingham central and south and now the Coventry MACs.

Chair: Where have they gone?

Angela from resources: I don’t know.

Chair: Michael, get them back.

Michael from Site Services: I don’t know how to do that. We can always email them if there is anything useful said.

Chair: Aren’t you supposed to be in charge of all this stuff?

Michael from Site Services: I don’t know how to do it. You need an expert to sort this. Maybe they all switched off their computers.

Chair: Don’t be stupid. Why would they do that? 

Angela from resources: We just lost all the MACs north of Birmingham and all the Oxfordshire ones.

Michael from Site Services: Could be an electricity grid outage across the Midlands.

Angela from resources: Or all the servers are down.

Michael from Site Services: What does that do?

Chair: Never mind. Crack on before any more disappear. Next question, please.

Question 135: Why don’t the inspectors join in the teaching, give an assembly, attend and contribute creatively to our strategic planning meeting and demonstrate what it means to be a prayer leader in the school’s faith community instead of silently taking notes and telling nobody what they observe and giving conclusions at the end that we do not understand, and sometimes disagree with because we don’t have access to the evidence they use to judge us? In fact, why don’t the inspectors who are here stand up and tell us their side of what goes on?

Chair: They are not allowed to talk about their inspection outside the four walls of the DES office in case they are misheard or they misspeak.

Angela from resources: They are obliged to be incoherent.

Michael from Site Services: I think you mean incognito.

Chair: No, the word you want is incommunicado. Anyway, if you wanted them to show you how to teach and lead meetings or say prayers in front of you that would mean they had to be very good as a leader and teacher and could draw on many years of experience of what they were talking about and modelling. That goes against everything the diocese believes in now because the best way forward is not to rely on experts and people who know what they are talking about 'cos they would start showing off and lording it over the rest who are not sure what to do. 

But in the open spirit of this assembly, we will pass on your unusual comment.

Question from unnamed screen: When will we talk about synodality? More importantly, when will we do it?

Chair: Synod…what? That is a new one on me. Someone will tell us what to do with it if it is one of Ofsted’s new tricks.

Time is up. Join me in a prayer that will send us on our way in safety and good health. I don’t believe in making up prayers to suit occasions that some go on about. Only priests should make up prayers and then write them down so we can read them.

I invite you to join me in a prayer we all know well, the act of contrition, the short form. Let’s pray that none of us need it in the dire traffic conditions we will meet as we try to get home this evening.

Angela from resources: Oh Lord, now the screens of all the schools south and east of Birmingham have gone blank.

Chair: Good job we finished in time. I thought some of them would never shut up with their moans and complaints. They should be relieved they hadn’t to go to the cathedral for the meeting. What was that ‘synsonidalities’ thing the last speaker went on about?

Angela from resources: I never heard of that. Could be an Ofsted thing like you said.

Michael from Site Services: Beryl, you never said when the next meeting will be.

Chair: I know. No rush in provoking them again too soon.

Angela from resources: Do you realise our mikes are still live?

Chair: Michael. For goodness sake! Do something right.

* The meeting described here is fictional. The characters bear some resemblance to actual people. The questions raised are real ones. Please tell us if you know the answers to the questions.

(c) Ted Dunphy

29/02/2024