Catholic Ethos
At St Alban's Catholic High School we strive to embody the description given by the Second Vatican Council of the kind of education which the Church must provide:
“she has the responsibility of communicating the life of Christ to those who believe, and of assisting them with ceaseless concern so that they may grow into the fullness of that same life…the Church is bound to give these children of hers the kind of education through which their entire lives can be penetrated with the spirit of Christ, while at the same time she offers her services to all peoples by way of promoting the full development of the human person.” (GE 3)
We recognise that the Catholic School plays a primary role in delivering this education. St Alban's Catholic High School is not just an environment for providing a series of lessons; it operates out of an educational philosophy which aims to meet the needs of the young people of today in the light of the Church’s faith in Jesus Christ. (c.f. RDECS Para 22).
The Second Vatican Council declared that it is the religious dimension that makes the Catholic school distinctive. This religious dimension can be found in:
a) the context in which education is delivered,
b) the means by which the personal development of each student is achieved,
c) the relationship established between culture and the faith of the Church in the message of Christ,
d) the fact that all knowledge is informed by and derives its ultimate meaning from the faith within whose context it is pursued. (cf. RDECS paragraph 1).
We believe that the specific task of the Catholic school is to bring faith and scholarship together: keeping the freshness of the challenge of Christ’s message to human living today while, at the same time, respecting the autonomy and methodologies proper to human knowledge. (C.f. RDECS Para 31) The paramount concern is the formation of persons.
“A true education must seek the development of all the human faculties of the student: preparing him for professional life, cultivating his ethical and social consciousness, extending his awareness of the transcendental, making him a freeman of that spiritual realm that is his one sure fortress against the world’s conditioning. For man is an inhabitant of eternity as well as a dweller on earth.”
Professor Patrick Reilly: Keynote address on the Aims of Education, at the National Debate on Education 2002.
