It is with great pleasure that I address you today at our annual prize giving.
2006 was a good year for the College. For the 3rd year in a row more than 50% of all Highers were at A grade, our S6 results improved again and large numbers of our pupils left for Oxbridge and other top ranking universities. We have our highest number of S6 returners in this academic year and we have great hopes for their success. The summer holiday saw a highly successful rugby tour of Australia, the 24th Annual Children’s Fund holiday and our 2nd pilgrimage to Lourdes.
As I have already written of these matters in my letters to parents it is unnecessary to dwell on them here.
 What I intend to do today, in my address, is focus on our vision as a Catholic School and as a Jesuit School.
2006 is a year of Jesuit anniversaries when we are invited to renew ourselves through reflection on the lives of St Ignatius Loyola, St Francis Xavier and Blessed Pierre Favre.
From each of those three men I would like to draw out one theme that is relevant to the College; from Ignatius, mission; from Xavier, a willingness to step into the unknown and take risks; from Favre, the need for dialogue.
Our school mission, written on the sign outside the College, is a translation from the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, which Ignatius wrote some 450 years ago.  Our mission is ‘the improvement in living and learning to the greater glory of God and the common good.’
I would like to start with ‘living and learning’. The order of words, with living coming first, the use of ‘and’, living and learning, would suggest that learning is not enough, that on its own it is deficient, that it is far too limited a goal for a school such as ours.
This may be best illustrated through an example.
I am fortunate to have visited the House of The Wannsee Conference where the so-called final solution to the problem of the Jews in Europe was decided.  That House, set on a beautiful lake in the outskirts of Berlin, is a terrifying place.  There, on 20th January 1942, fifteen men gathered to decide how to exterminate millions of our fellow human beings.
Of the fifteen, three were brought up as Catholics and went to Catholic school; nine went to university, by no means common in those times; of those nine, eight had done further, post graduate study and had PhDs, and of those eight, six were lawyers.
It is hard to imagine a better illustration of the fact that learning alone does not lead to decency, goodness, happiness or a sense of justice.  Learning must be intimately linked to living, living in a decent, just and honest manner. In a similar way salvation comes through faith and good works, not faith alone.
It is not a matter of learning taking second place to living, the two go together, living and learning, one influencing and informing the other, bound together in an integrated and well balanced human being.
I mentioned trying to live in a decent, honest and just manner.  It is not self evident what that means and we need to look to the second part of our mission statement for some guidance. It reads ‘for the greater glory of God and the common good’; once again I stress the word ‘and’. Two principles that should go together but that can sometimes be in conflict.
Again, let me give you an example.  We know that through scientific research it may be possible to find a cure for certain very serious hereditary diseases that cause great suffering.  There is no argument that such research is for the common good and that millions of people could benefit.  That research, however, currently requires experimentation on, and the destruction of, human embryos.  An embryo is not a human being, but an embryo has human life and the Church teaches that innocent human life should never be taken.
It is a tough teaching, and the majority of people in this country probably disagree with it, but it is a very stark example of how an understanding of the common good can be in direct conflict with what we, as Catholics, believe to be God’s laws for humanity; a law which tries to protect the weak and the vulnerable and values all human life, rich, poor, black, white, disabled, able bodied, young, old, born and unborn.
The search for the common good must always be balanced by the rights and dignity of the individual human person, ‘made in the image and likeness of God’, each of us little less than an angel.
That phrase, glory of God and the common good, also has another profound meaning.  It is the idea that we use our learning and our lives, not just for our own benefit, but also for the service of God and our fellow men and women. 
This is a wonderfully ambitious mission. A mission that everyone connected with the College should be proud to uphold, a mission that challenges us to be better human beings through our study, our work and the way we live our lives.
That is my theme from Ignatius, the need to focus on your mission.  What of Xavier, and his willingness to step into the unknown and take risks? The man who at 48 hours notice was willing to leave the security of home and Europe, and embark on a treacherous journey to India and Japan and become the greatest missionary in the history of the Church.
It is very easy for a school like St Aloysius to be conservative, to be uneasy about change and innovation.  After all, its strength is in part its history and tradition.  Yet Ignatius and his companions, most famous amongst them being Xavier, were anything but traditionalists.  They broke the mould and found a different way of being of service to God and His Church.  In their schools they tried to teach in a different way; to engage the imagination, the hearts and the minds of their pupils, rather than just promoting learning by rote.  They would have loved W B Yeats’ famous line ‘education is not about filling a pail (a bucket) but lighting a fire.’
The challenge, for us as teachers, is to inspire and enliven, and at the same time prepare for crucial examination success.  Once again I stress the word ‘and’. Lessons can be enjoyable, interesting, even fun and prepare you well for examinations.
We learn and remember best when our minds and imaginations are stimulated or when we are actively engaged in a task.
From my first eight years of schooling I cannot recall a single lesson, and that is nothing to do with my advancing years.  I was successful in exams but that was it.  I can only remember the names of two teachers.  One who consistently hit me around the head if I made a mistake and the other because he walked in a funny way and, as thirteen-year-old boys, we were convinced that he had a wooden backside.
Senior school was marginally better but what a joy it might have been to have had the chance to do something other than just listen and take notes.
Let me illustrate my point with an example that is again associated with Nazi Germany and the extermination of the Jews, the Holocaust.  On one school trip, on one visit to the Jewish Museum in Berlin, in one room, which had no exhibits, I learnt something about the Holocaust that no fact, figure or information from a history book could have given me.
The room is called the Holocaust Tower.  You enter through a big, heavy metal door, which clangs shut behind you.  The walls are grey and oddly shaped, they are high, the small windows are at least twenty metres up and they let in just enough light.  In the room I felt cut off, isolated, trapped, helpless and hopeless, and I could not wait to get out.  Imagine if there was no escape.  
Education is about lighting a fire, not filling a bucket.
Believe me that is not an easy task and it is a real challenge for us as teachers.  Francis Xavier in his willingness to take risks should be an encouragement to us.
These ideas of challenge and risk lead me directly to Pierre Favre, the second of Ignatius’ companions that we remember this year. The hallmark of his work was dialogue, in particular with the Protestant Reformers of 16th century Europe. His message to us would be that we-  teachers, parents and pupils- should work together, trust each other and support each other, even when we may disagree.
A few months ago, as a staff, we watched a video lecture by one of the foremost British experts on the assessment and marking of pupils’ work.  One of his arguments, backed by extensive research, was that giving marks to pupils actually held back their performance and that if we wanted to improve performance we should give comments and no marks.  I think that he is right but I would be very cautious about such a radical change of policy. Whilst I advocate risk taking, a child only gets one chance of a school education, and therefore any risk must be balanced and prudent.
This contentious issue makes the point that we, and here again I mean teachers, parents and pupils, need to discuss educational matters in an open manner, to have a dialogue, to listen to each other and move forward by working together.
And move forward we will, to greater and greater success, a success built on living and learning for the greater glory of God and the common good.  A success built on tradition and innovation, on partnership, and trust.
In celebrating the anniversaries of Loyola, Xavier and Favre, the Jesuits devised a slogan that summed up their lives, ‘go set the world on fire.’  The British Jesuits did not use that slogan.  2006 is also the 400th anniversary of the execution of the Jesuits who were, and here I betray a certain prejudice, falsely accused of taking part in the Gunpowder Plot.  ‘Go set the world on fire’ did not appear the most appropriate slogan to use.  It does, however, sum up what we want for our pupils as they strive to be of service to others and a force for good and for God in our world.

I now invite Lady Cosgrove to present our prizes.