Taking the Anglican Temperature of our SchoolS
In each of the three dioceses where we have schools, at least one school has been piloting a way of taking their Anglican temperature. This is with a view to creating a range of models or resources that any of our schools could use in time to gauge the robustness of their own Anglican Identity.
In Perth, John Septimus Roe Anglican Community School (JSRACS) embraced the challenge early this year and created a proforma called “How Anglican Are We?” The working group comprised of Principal Jason Bartell and Chaplains Father Mark McCracken and The Reverend Caro Hemmings. They will continue to gather information over the course of Term 4 that will help the school begin to see what their Anglican temperature might be. From this initial survey, there are plans in 2025 to listen to the voices of many more staff and students in each part of the school to build the picture.
Frederick Irwin Anglican School (FIAS), in the Diocese of Bunbury, also began considering ways to take its Anglican temperature in the first half of this year. From the information gained in that initial process, Principal Tracey Gray and Chaplain and The Reverend Canon James Tabor ran a workshop at the ASA Conference in Melbourne in August called: ‘To Foster Anglicanism in Their Schools, What do Staff Need to Authentically Understand and Demonstrate – and is this Enough?’. Father James generously agreed to present the workshop again at the Western Australian Anglican Schools Association Chaplaincy Day at Wollaston on Friday, 6 September 2024. The interest shown by workshop participants in what had been discovered, and the process used to do so, was very clear in both settings.
From among our Eastern schools in the Diocese of Wangaratta, Cathedral College Wangaratta (CCW) has been working steadily on a third model for Anglican temperature taking. The Head of Faith and Service, Adam Graham, with Principal Nick Jones and Chaplain The Reverend Dr Mark Mickelburough, have set up an ‘Anglican Identity Audit’ based on learner attributes, some key characteristics of Anglican schools, and the School values; they are describing it as a work in progress.
I have been fascinated by the similar-yet-unique-to-context approaches of JSRACS, FIAS, and CCW to taking their respective Anglican temperatures. It’s a privilege to catch up with groups within schools working on the same thing but in a slightly different way. It makes it clear that a desired outcome can be arrived at from a range of angles. By way of support, I created a supplementary model as a fourth – or additional – option for taking the Anglican temperature in a school. By the end of the year, with the permission of all involved, I hope to have at least the four models begun this year in the ‘Anglican Identity’ section of the ASC website. They can be supplemented and added to over time. The aim of sharing the initial models is to provoke interest from our other schools to consider giving one or more of the temperature-taking models a go, or perhaps to shape one unique to context.
How will you go about measuring the Anglican temperature in your neck of the woods?
The Reverend Dr Eleanor O’Donnell
Director of Anglican Identity
