Abstract
How does a sense of belonging to a Christian community contribute to the spiritual development of pupils? Drawing on data generated by the Ten Leading Schools research project (a collaboration between Canterbury Christ Church University and the University of Warwick), this chapter explores the ways in which pupils and staff identified a sense of belonging to a Christian community. It considers why these aspects were perceived to contribute to students’ spiritual development, and how the school established and sustained this sense of belonging to a Christian community. The chapter concludes with a reflection on the potential implications of these findings.
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Notes
- 1.
The schools were asked to provide evidence that they were a ‘leading’ school in the area of spiritual development. Applications were scrutinised by the TLS steering group and ten schools were selected from across England and Wales. Eight of the schools are Church of England schools, one is joint Anglican-Catholic and the other an Oasis academy. Oasis Community Learning has 47 academies in England. Their vision is to provide exceptional education at the heart of the community, ‘where everyone is included, making a contribution and reaching their God-given potential’ (http://www.oasiscommunitylearning.org/Vision-and-Values [accessed 5 April 2017]).
- 2.
The stories of the ten Christian-ethos secondary schools are being published in Casson et al. (2017).
- 3.
In England, collective worship is a statutory requirement of all schools, church and community . In a Church of England school, it should reflect the Anglican tradition. The format, time and content vary; the term includes year or house group assemblies, and worship in form class groups.
- 4.
In total 34 interviews were carried out, involving 36 students and 16 staff. The staff interviews were mostly individual and the students were interviewed in a focus group. Some were interviewed more than once.
- 5.
A narthex is the exterior porch of a church.
- 6.
A more detailed definition is available in his later work (Grace 2016, p.48–49).
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Casson, A. (2018). A Sense of Belonging: Spiritual Development in Christian-Ethos Secondary Schools. In: Stuart-Buttle, R., Shortt, J. (eds) Christian Faith, Formation and Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62803-5_11
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