The Religious Dimension of Education in a Catholic Schools has been one of the most significant church documents on education published since the Second Vatican Council. This was nothing less that a call for Catholic schools to reflect on what they were doing and to renew themselves.

The invitation is just as relevant today as it was thirty years ago. An essential component of our educational narrative is our commitment to reflection and renewal.

There have been some interesting studies done on Catholic school effectiveness since the religious dimension document was first published.

Probably the best known was the research on American Catholic schools by Bryk et al in the 1990s. The Bryk team studied the generally-perceived success of Catholic schools which they attributed to four causes: focused academic attention, communal organisation, inspirational ideology and decentralised governance.

A British study of Catholic schools in poor areas, also in the 1990s, supported the Bryk findings. This report (O’Keeffe, 1997) also noted the significance of high personal and academic expectations which contrasted with those of the deprived communities within which the schools were located.

Echoes of these two pieces of landmark research are found in studies of the broader spectrum of schools across the English-speaking world. (See Michael Fullan’s latest work, Turnabout Leadership, 2006.)

Today we see positive responses to these findings within our own schools with their intensifying focus on quality learning and teaching, schools as learning communities, shared vision and the self-managing school, all integrated within a coherent education narrative.

Consider the four features that Bryk identifies as main causes of the success of Catholic schools that were subjects of study. How do these manifest themselves in your school?