AMDG

PRIZE GIVING 2009

Your Eminence, your Grace, your Lordship, Fr Provincial, Monsignor,  Rev Fathers, Rev Brother, Lord Gill, Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my great pleasure to address you today.

As is traditional on this occasion I will briefly review the last academic year, the 150th in the history of the College.

In the Senior School, one way of judging our year's work is through examination results.

In truth it is not a very good way and league tables based on limited data, which claim that a particular school is the top performing school, are pretty meaningless.  That said, based on limited data, in this case the pass rate (A-C) for Higher, we were (as the Chair of Governors said) the top performing school in Glasgow. Our pass rate, just short of 94%, was the best pre-appeal results that the College has ever achieved.  What a wonderful reward for the pupils, parents and teachers of last year's S5 in this our sesquicentennial year.

The Advanced Higher results were also our best ever with just under 40% of all grades being As, and with twelve students achieving three As at Advanced Higher, a particularly pleasing achievement.  From last year's S6, five students are proceeding to either Oxford or Cambridge (three for Medicine, one for Physics and one for Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic).  We continue to send a large number of students, around 20 per year, to medical and dental school, and law remains a popular career choice.  I am delighted, however, to report that the uptake of degrees in languages, the arts and pure science remain strong.  I know that Lord Gill, who was an outstanding classicist before he became a lawyer, would agree with the comment on a student's university application reference, that read ‘how wonderful that this future doctor has a good knowledge of Latin and therefore some soul'.

You may know that for some years S4 were not, in most subjects, examined by a certificated course.  That policy changed in 2005 and, since 2007, S4 pupils have been entered for Intermediate 2 examinations.  Since then our results have been remarkably consistent with a percentage pass rate in the mid 90s and a percentage A rate in the mid 60s.  This year our A rate, at just under 67%, was the best we have achieved.

Our results this year were very good, and we are rightly proud of them.  Our pass rates, at all levels, are now fairly consistent and will vary by a point or two in some years.  Our focus for improvement should be on the percentage of A grades and, from a different perspective, on ensuring that all students achieve a minimum of three passes (A-C) at Higher.

In educational circles it is increasingly fashionable to criticise examinations, to say that pupils are over tested, that we need to reduce the so called burden of exams because they do not encourage deep learning.  There is some truth in such statements.  When, however, the syllabus and test are fair, and the teaching focussed and interesting, I believe that examinations provide an excellent framework for learning.

Let me give you an example to illustrate my point.

In 2007 we introduced an examination in religious education, a Roman Catholic syllabus but an English qualification, a GCSE (equivalent to Intermediate 2).  Sadly, no similar Scottish qualification is available.  I know the course well, though I do not teach it, but I do teach RE to the two years that follow it.  The syllabus, and the focus and discipline that the exam provides, has made a real difference, a real improvement, to the knowledge and understanding that our young people have of the Gospels and some of the essentials of our faith.

So far, in my comments about learning, I have restricted myself to lesson based learning.  I make no apology for that because that is the core of our ministry, the centre of our work for ‘the greater glory of God and the common good'.

The qualities of mind and heart that we seek to develop as a Jesuit and as a Catholic school should be found, in the first instance, in our lessons but, as we all know, they must not be limited to that context.

Some years ago the New Scientist magazine had an interesting front cover, a picture of Albert Einstein next to a picture of David Beckham kicking a football.  The caption was, which one is the most intelligent?  A simple and direct way of saying that intelligence is more than academic ability. Schools must find more opportunities to develop intelligences that are physical, aesthetic, emotional, moral and spiritual.

That is why it is wonderful to see young people performing on stage, as they did so beautifully today, and why, as part of our sesquicentennial celebrations, there is a Gala Concert in this same Concert Hall on Tuesday 17th November.  Performance, be it music, drama, public speaking or debating, gives young people an opportunity to develop their skills, their confidence and their ability to work as a team and rely on one another.  The same is obviously true of sport and last year was very successful for our two main sports, rugby and hockey, and for  more recent additions such as basketball and football, where, in the latter, we were the Scottish Independent School Champions.

In outdoor education, the numbers involved have increased year on year and last year we became the largest single centre in the west of Scotland for the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme.  Opportunities for outdoor education, and the challenge that goes with it, are found in every year from P6 to S6.

God can truly be found in all things.  The stage, the playing fields, the mountainside and the loch present opportunities not found in the classroom or the Chapel.

You will know, from my letters home to parents, from school assemblies and from past Prize Giving speeches, that there is another dimension to life at the College which is more directly, but in no sense exclusively, the source of moral, spiritual and religious development.  Our retreat programme is outstanding and the Kairos retreat in S5, attended by almost the whole year group, can be a seminal moment in the life of a young person.  The community service programme (the Arrupe Programme) in S5 and S6 has become a model of good practice adopted by other schools, the fifth Lourdes Pilgrimage took place this summer and in June 2009 there was the 27th annual Children's Fund Holiday.

None of these achievements, in examinations or in the many activities of the College, would be possible without the commitment, co-operation and hard work of our pupils. Their innate goodness, their unpretentious good humour, their thoughtfulness and their ambition for the greater things should be praised.  The reputation of this College is safe in their hands.

Nor should we take for granted the hard work and dedication of the staff who have sustained and inspired the successes and achievements of last year.  I thank you, the parents of the College, from whom our pupils acquire their spirit of goodness and generosity, and for whom the cost of independent education is a significant sacrifice.

In the presence of Fr Provincial I thank the Society of Jesus.  The Jesuit tradition and philosophy is a rich source of inspiration, a great gift to the Church and the world.

The philosophy has been matched by the wonderful personal support and encouragement of Jesuit priests and brothers, and their lay collaborators, to me, as Head, and to the staff and pupils of the College.  The Society has been equally generous in financial support of which the recent purchase of the Convent of Mercy, for use by the College, is an example.

The older members of staff, to be more precise Mr Divers and Mr Crampsey, can, as young pupils, remember the 100th anniversary celebrations in 1959.  In that year, Mr McCabe was a member of staff of the College Preparatory or Junior School, Lord Gill was in his final year, leaving that June, and  Bishop Moran, who is also a former pupil, was ordained a priest on 19th March 1959. The Catholic world of that time, a world into which I was also born and brought up, sadly no longer exists and I do not believe that we shall ever return to it.  At the same time, the needs of the Catholic community have changed quite dramatically during the last 50 years.  A Catholic professional and middle class of the highest calibre has been created and, with its creation, has come the end of the first chapter of the history of this College.

One might, therefore, think that schools of this type are no longer required.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Our society needs us to witness to our faith, to our belief in a transcendent God, and to moral values that are clear and unambiguous, not dependent on social or political pressure.  In 1959 six of the leavers of that year went on to train as priests. This year two OAs will be starting their training for the priesthood. It would be wonderful for our community if more of you would consider that vocation or the religious life.

Young men and women of the College, our Church and our society need you more than ever, and it will be through your lives that the second chapter of the history of the College will be written.  God willing, you will be present to celebrate with great joy the 200th Anniversary in 2059.

By way of conclusion, I end my speech today with a quote from the publication, The Characteristics of Jesuit Education, a quote that was used at our first staff meeting of this academic year.

‘A traditional aim of Jesuit education has been to train leaders: men and women who assume responsible positions in society through which they have a positive influence on others.  This objective has, at times, led to excesses which call for correction.  Whatever the concept may have meant in the past, the goal of Jesuit education in today's understanding of the Ignatian world view is ...... to educate leaders in service.  The Jesuit school, therefore, will help students to develop the qualities of mind and heart that will enable them - in whatever station they assume in life - to work with others for the good of all in the service of the Kingdom of God'. (para 110)

I invite Lord Gill to present the prizes.

LDS