This is a write up of a presentation made to chaplains as part of the 2024 Anglican Schools Australia Conference.
1: A realistic appraisal of the challenge that we face
The reality is that talking about Anglican Identity can be a tough ask in an Anglican School in 2024. In a parish, Anglican identity is a given. In an Anglican school, Anglican Identity must compete with everything else.
For many chaplains the things that we would consider important, if not foundational, to an Anglican school can be seen as being pushed to the margins. The traditional markers of Anglican Identity – chapel and a spiritual presence at assembly, classroom religious education teaching, emphasis on pastoral care and the role of the chaplain no longer find themselves at the centre of school life.
If in a parish Anglican Identity is seen to be on the margins, then the Vicar has the power to push it back to the centre of church life. In an Anglican school, if Anglican Identity is on the margins, then the chaplain is relatively powerless to push it back to the centre of school life.
Our Anglican schools have changed dramatically. The school where I work, Mentone Grammar in Melbourne, is one hundred and one years old this year. It was founded out of our local Anglican Church, St Augustine’s Mentone, for the children of the congregation[1].
One hundred years on and my school has grown massively from the twenty-three students at its founding to more than two thousand students. Our connection with our local church has lessened considerably, and our student community is largely non-religious. Those students who do hold an Anglican affiliation are outnumbered by our Catholic students.
The reality on the ground in our Anglican schools is that we are trying to promote Anglican Identity in a community where there are diminishing numbers of Anglican leaders, Anglican staff, Anglican students, and Anglican parents. The question could reasonably be asked – what does it mean to say that Mentone Grammar is an Anglican School in 2024?
How then to talk about Anglican Identity in an accessible manner in an increasingly secular world? Putting it more bluntly – how do we interest a disinterested school community in what can be perceived as the intrinsically uninteresting – Anglican Identity?
Anglican schools are often a bit embarrassed by their Anglican Identity, which somewhat ironically is a very Anglican thing to be. We are envious of the Catholic Church whose students seem to have stronger sense of ‘brand identity’. Our Catholic families are much more aware of the church that they are staying away from compared to our Anglican families.
How is your school’s sense of Anglican Identity articulated? How is it conveyed to your students, staff and parents? How can you get students genuinely interested in questions around Anglican Identity?
In my twenty-five years of experience working in Anglican schools I have found that a good strategy when it comes to Anglican Identity is to come at it indirectly. You don’t open with ‘today we are going look at Anglican Identity’ but rather you turn your attention to other aspects of school life where questions about Anglican Identity naturally come to the surface.
2: Twelve strategies for engaging students about Anglican Identity
1: School History
Students may not be interested in Anglican Identity, but they are typically interested in their school. They are proud of the school they attend and are open to learning more about its history and what makes it the great school that it is today.
Having a good knowledge of the history of your school is really helpful. It enables you to tell the story of your school back to your school. Chances are pretty good that your Anglican school was established by your local Anglican parish or at least has a strong historical association with it. So, the story of the founding of your school is a very Anglican story involving Anglicans working together. Anglicanism will be in many instances in the very DNA of your school.
You may not feel that you know the story of your school that well, especially if you a relatively new to it. So, the school archivist, if you have one, is a good relationship to cultivate. As is the long serving staff member who can answer all your questions about school history. If your school has an official history, it is worth getting a copy and giving it a good read. While it may not be a riveting read the knowledge you will pick up, and the stories you will be able to tell, will be invaluable for your ministry.
Year 7 can be a great time to tell the story of the school as new students arrive and can be keen to learn more about it. As we know telling history can be boring, especially to young people, so you need to make sure you tell the story of your school in an interesting way. Photos can really help engage as does telling stories. History can get tedious if it just dryly focuses on dates but can get interesting if it focuses on people and their stories.
Pretty much everyone associated with your school, students, staff and parents will be proud of your school and so will be open to hearing about its history and heritage if told in an interesting and engaging way.
Unusual events in the school’s history can be of interest as are stories of how different school life was back in the day. We have a great photo from fifty years ago of the students from our school digging the hole for our new swimming pool. Students and staff were a bit blown away by this photo when it was shown recently, it being a powerful visual reminder of how much school has changed.
Anniversaries in the life of your school are also worth noting and celebrating and using them as occasions to tell the story.
2: School Mottos and School Crests
Most Anglican schools have a motto, typically in Latin, but the chances are pretty good that your school motto will have some sort of Christian connection. My school motto is ‘Labore et Honore’ which means ‘by labour and with honour’. Labour and honour for example are words that have some great connections in the scriptures that are worth exploring with students.
Unpacking what is in your school crest is another great activity to do with students. My school crest has a Bishop’s Mitre in it (see diagram below). The Mitre is a very common symbol to denote an Anglican school. Pointing this out to students soon has them asking – what is a Mitre, why do Bishop’s wear it, and what does the Mitre symbolise? All great questions to stimulate a good conversation about Anglican Identify.
A useful classroom exercise is to compare your school crest with other schools. You can draw on schools in your local area or schools that you play sport against. Comparing and contrasting the symbolism is school crests makes for an engaging classroom activity.
Anglican school crests often have a Bible in them. Given the crest is on our school uniform a great quick activity with Year 7 is to get students to point to their nearest Bible. There is a flurry of pointing to various parts of the classroom and then I give them a hint – you’re wearing it. Students then realise that they are wearing a Bible as part of the school crest which is strategically placed near their heart. Great symbolism abounds.
3: School Values
Values are at the heart of our Anglican schools. While Anglican schools righty emphasise their academic program they also put a high value on forming the character of their students. School values are seen as one of the main drivers of character formation.
Making connection with your school’s values is one of the key things we can do as chaplains. At my school we have a values poster in every classroom that outlines our seven school values. In every classroom lesson I take I can easily refer students to the poster and therefore to our school values. These values have a Christian origin, and you can link them to a passage of scripture. We have a prayer about each value that is regularly used in chapel and assemblies.
As you can see from our values poster above the top circle is of one of the stain glass windows from the local Anglican church out of which our school was founded. This helps provide a visual reminder of where our values have come from.
4: Inclusivity
Another defining feature of Anglican schools is our inclusive nature. We welcome everyone to our school communities. The fact that our schools are inclusive comes from the face that we are an Anglican school – not in spite of it. When I started at my school one of the phrases on our website read ‘Mentone Grammar is an Anglican school, but we welcome students of all backgrounds and religious beliefs. The ‘but’ in that statement really irked me and so we changed the ‘but’ to an ‘and’. So it now reads ‘Mentone Grammar is an Anglican school, and we welcome students of all backgrounds and religious beliefs.’ This is much more in line with our Anglican ethos as an inclusive school. Whenever questions come up in class from students about why we are inclusive school I always make the point that it is because we are an Anglican school.
5: School website and Wikipedia entry
Taking Year 7 students through your school website can be a helpful activity as they begin their journey through your school. You can highlight for them the Anglican things and unpack what it means to be an Anglican school.
Your school will probably have a Wikipedia page. As we know Wikipedia pages are helpful but can contain errors or get out of date. A fun activity with Year 7 students is, once they know a bit about their school, is to get them to see if they can find any mistakes in the school Wikipedia page. All sorts of questions arise from students looking at this. Your Wikipedia page will no doubt highlight that you are an Anglican school and will enable you to tell the school story in a way that they students are interested in. My students love to look at the ‘notable alumni’ section and seeing who they know who attended the school.
6: School Houses
Most Anglican schools divide their students into Houses. Houses are often a key means of pastoral care and fostering student competition within the school. If your school is like mine these Houses are named after prominent people who contributed to your school. Chances are good that many of them will have been Anglicans and inspired to be involved in your school as a way of serving and giving back.
Telling their story, especially in gatherings of the respective House groups is a helpful thing to do. Writing a House Prayer for each House that shares a bit about the contribution of the person and highlights their personal qualities as ones for the House to emulate works well.
7: What does your school look like – enrolment data.
As I have said before students are really interested in learning more about their school. Through their enrolment forms my school collects a whole lot of data on our students, including what religion (if any) they identify with. In my experience sharing this religious data with students leads to all sorts of interesting questions and conversations.
If you are wanting to have a conversation about the differences between the denomination then starting with your own school community is a great place to begin. Students realise that in an Anglican school Anglican students are typically in the minority. It doesn’t take long before students are asking – what is the difference between Catholics and Anglicans? It is worth checking that your school is comfortable in this data being shared (mine is).
8: What does Australia look like? What does the world look like?
Once you have looked at the religious data for your school you can turn your attention to the census data in terms of what the religious beliefs of Australians are. Looking at the long term trends for religious data in this country can be a discouraging experience, especially if you are focusing on the Anglican Church. However, it is worth taking the next step and looking at the data for religious beliefs around the world.
If your students are like mine, they will be amazed to discover that the typical Anglican is not an old bald bloke like me but rather a young woman from Africa. In my experience just by looking at the data students naturally start asking questions. Why is the Anglican Church in Australia declining while it is growing at such a rapid rate in Nigeria?
RE sometimes gets accused of not dealing with facts, merely subjective opinions. However, statistics are pretty objective and can make for a great jump off point for some really interesting and engaging classroom conversations.
9: Sport
One of the key features of many Anglican schools is their sports program and many students are really interested in sport. One activity that works well for Year 9 students is comparing and contrasting the schools in the sports competition that your school is a part of. My school is part of the AGSV (Associated Grammar Schools of Victoria). This competition includes nine schools, six of which are Anglican.
A classroom activity that students enjoy is looking at the school that we play sport against. They have to identity the school from their school crest, find out how old it is, and importantly what religious denomination it is. Students complete a table doing online research looking at competitor school’s websites and all sorts of questions arise as they do this activity.
10: Current Events
Any chaplain knows that it is always good to reference things that are currently going on in the world. The Anglican Church doesn’t come up much in the news and rarely for a positive story. I did get some good traction in class last year referencing the coronation service for King Charles and the fact that it was an Anglican service.
In the realm of popular culture, connections to the Anglican Church are even thinner on the ground but if you know Dr Who, the Anglican Marines have been a fun reference to make with students.
11: Social Service
Our Anglican schools have great social service/justice programs. These are often student led and run. It is helpful to direct students to make connections with the good work that our Anglican agencies do in this space and support them. Our student often gravitate to supporting charities that have a ‘gimmicky’ campaign. These are good as it goes but working with an Anglican agency can be helpful to raise awareness of the great work that the Anglican church does in this space. Making students aware of work of the wider Anglican church can be really eye opening for them.
12: Should Your School Change its Religious Tradition?
Year 9 is often the year that schools look at world religions. One practical activity that makes students deeply reflect on this is to ask the students to look at what might change in their school if it changed its religious tradition from the Anglican tradition.
This project extends over a number of lessons and is in two parts. Firstly, each student is given a different religion and does some research on it.
Once students have an understanding of the religious tradition you can move to the second part exploring what it would look like if your school changed its religion. Students can then present their finding to the class about what would change and what would remain the same in the life of the school if the school changed to the religion they have researched.
[1] In this article I will be referring a lot to the school that I work in. Not because I think that Mentone Grammar has this all worked out but rather, I don’t want this to be an abstract discussion, but rather one that is anchored in the realities of daily school life.
Be First to Comment