Christ at the Centre: An inner city primary school in challenging times

This dissertation focuses on evaluating the central role of Christ and his teachings in the life and activities of a Catholic school community, using as a case study, St Philomena’s Primary School1, a Roman Catholic school situated in an inner city. This is particularly important due to the change of leadership in the school. Considering the changes that have taken place – and are still taking place – this research seeks to find out the current approach of leadership in the school and how this affects the Catholic life of the school. It also seeks to find out how it affect the spiritual development of the pupils. To achieve these aims in this dissertation, I sought to carry out a literature review in the following areas: 1. Catholic life of a school 2. Catholic School Leadership as a Reflection of Jesus’ Style of Ministry a) Servant leadership b) Invitational leadership c.) Collaborative Ministry 3. Managerialism- A Contemporary Challenge Following the Literature review, I carried out semi-structured interviews with the executive head teacher and a member of the leadership team. I also carried out a questionnaire with the teachers, including the Executive Headteacher and the Deputy Headteacher. The research findings were analysed in the context of the literature review and conclusions were arrived at based on these together with a series of recommendations