by Daniel Coyle
Headteacher of Newman Catholic College
There are, it seems to me, two principal reasons why Blessed John Henry Newman resonates today.
Firstly, Newman embraced change. He famously declared ‘To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often’. An examination of Newman’s life and times definitely supports the view that he was familiar with transformation on a number of levels. It is significant that he responded with dignity to those who would traduce him for his adherence to this position. As a school leader, the capacity to manage change with compassion and integrity allied to vision and courage is arguably the greatest skill one can acquire.
The second reason is Newman’s powerful evocation of love through, ‘Cor ad cor loquitur, heart speaks unto heart.’ Indeed, I would suggest that the common humanity that this phrase evokes has seldom been in greater need. Much of what follows in this regard is a synthesis of what students at NCC see and hear on a daily basis. Indeed, the school is characterised by our sui generis and ubiquitous Newman Values.
When considering the issue of change it is important to begin with some historical context. Notably Newman’s life spanned the majority of the nineteenth century. He was 89 years old when he died on 11th August 1890, and therefore had lived through some of the most turbulent and transformative decades in English history. Newman was a well-known Anglican reforming priest in the 1830s and 1840s as large parts of England were consumed by the upheaval and ravages of the Industrial Revolution. His conversion to Catholicism was contemporaneous with the highpoint of Chartist demands for suffrage. Prior to that he had been a leading figure in both the Tractarian and Oxford movements which sought to restore pre-Reformation elements of the Catholic Church to Anglicanism. The later decades of his life saw the apogee of British imperial grandeur and its subsequent steady decline. Crucially he also lived through the massive impact of the Irish Famine with the arrival of nearly one million Catholic Irish refugees to Britain's cities from the mid-1840s onwards. Let us not forget, this was an age of rampant prejudice and hostility towards Catholics. Catholic Emancipation had only occurred in 1829 and the hierarchy restored for the first time since the Protestant Reformation in 1834.
I do not believe that I exaggerate when drawing comparisons between Newman’s era and that of our own. We are always surrounded by change of course, but both periods seem to share a common anxiety and uncertainty. Moreover, the social issues of 2019 and of Newman’s day, whilst different, have clear parallels. It was his response to the context of his day that can shine a light for own development. Furthermore, as school leaders we are constantly faced with the challenges that change brings. We have to be wise, knowledgeable and courteous but equally courageous and bold. I take for good coin the view that Newman’s clear-eyed determination offers a guide to how we should manage our schools and ourselves in modern Britain.
‘Cor ad cor loquitur, heart speaks unto heart’ defines our Harlesden community and provides us with a lodestone that is central to our vision and values. I have tried over the years to explain why this phrase is so powerful and pertinent to our school and to what we try to achieve every day. My message is firmly rooted in our context.
On the surface we are all different. I stand in assembly every day and look out at hundreds of young people of different ethnic groups, gender, religions, languages, sexuality and values. In recent years the school has been blessed with the advantages of immigration. We have developed a sophisticated and highly successful assessment system, induction programme and curriculum pathway to ensure that these students can make rapid progress and gain access to the powerful knowledge that they need to flourish in our society.
The school was established as Cardinal Hinsley in 1958 to serve an overwhelmingly Irish, West African and Caribbean working class community. It now has a 55% Catholic cohort and a growing number of Hindu and Muslim students. With a high level of inclusivity come complex and unique challenges. It is often difficult, for example, to ensure that all children engage with Mass and we have frequent discussions about mutual respect, tolerance and the shared benefits of celebrating together. We have had difficult discussions with some of our Muslim students about the action of priests when blessing them during the Eucharist. There are times when I would love to be headteacher of a 100% Catholic school, where everyone knows all the words and engagement is a given. However, I believe that in this dialogue there is a worthiness and a benefit for the common good.
‘Heart speaks unto heart’ is a constant reminder that we share a common humanity, that there is more that unites than divides us. It proclaims that whatever our background or circumstances, we stand shoulder to shoulder, student to student, and heart to heart with one another. Our students wear a badge on their green blazers with three hearts on them; The key of ‘heart speaks unto heart’ is that it allows us to engage in a dialogue of love. I have worked in London Catholic schools since 1989 and never thought I would hear the word love used so frequently as I do at NCC. The three hearts represent not merely our universal humanity but also our closeness and devotion to God (the third heart at the bottom of the badge is the largest of the three). This message is a common refrain at our daily school assembly and is reinforced by our Newman Values.
There is not enough space in this article to focus on Newman’s role in the development of Catholic education, by his establishment of the Oratory in Birmingham and the Catholic University of Ireland (now University College Dublin). Rather, I have chosen to focus on his understanding of change as evidence of a perfect life and his promotion of egalitarianism and love through the notion of ‘heart speaks unto heart’. I have always been drawn to his prayer for
St Monica where he states that we must be ‘zealous for all the better gifts’ as a beautifully eloquent manifestation of what we want for our students and what they themselves should aspire towards.
As I write this piece during the summer holidays I am conscious of two summer schools running concurrently at NCC for the fourth year. The Syrian Summer camp, supported by Caritas Westminster, the US Charitable Trust, Children in Need and Sport England has supported hundreds of refugee children since 2015. The police camp engages Harlesden children in a series of astonishing educational and fun activities throughout the summer weeks. (http://bit.ly/NCCSummerCamps)
Newman Catholic College will mark the canonisation of Cardinal Newman with a Mass celebrated by Bishop John Sherrington on 30th October. The school is also organising a competition for a new badge to commemorate the historic events in Rome. More significantly, however, we recognise our responsibility as Catholic teachers in twenty-first century Britain. The Congregation for Catholic Education published a document called ‘The Catholic School on the Threshold of the New Millenium’ which affirms this, saying, ‘Teaching has an extraordinary moral depth and is one of our most excellent and creative activities. For the teacher does nor write on inanimate material but on the very spirit of the human being’. In our endeavours to fulfil these obligations we can do no better than to learn from the life and work of Blessed John Henry Newman.
