Examination of Witness (Questions 509-519)
3 FEBRUARY 2004
MR FRANK
MAGUIRE
Q509 Chairman: Good afternoon. May I
welcome you to the further session of the Committee's inquiry
into social cohesion? Could you introduce yourself for the record,
please?
Mr Maguire: I am Frank Maguire.
I am Headmaster of Emmaus Church of England and Catholic Primary
School in Liverpool.
Q510 Chairman: We have had your evidence.
Do you want to say anything by way of introduction or are you
happy for us to go straight to questions?
Mr Maguire: I am happy with the
paper you have in front of you.
Q511 Mr Clelland: It is obvious from
your evidence that you are proud of your school's academic successes
and so you should be. How do you achieve a balance in the classroom
between the attainment of pure academic standards and an awareness
of all the different communities in our increasingly diverse and
complex society?
Mr Maguire: Firstly, there is
complete unity between the two denominations in the class, so
all the children are educated together in collective worship in
assemblies and everything else. We do also introduce the children
to other faiths by visits to synagogues and to mosques and we
have people who come in and talk about Judaism and other such
things. We try to bring in multi-cultural aspects to all of their
studies and introduce them to successful and responsible black
and ethnic minority role models throughout the curriculum.
Q512 Mr Clelland: Are you able to measure
how successful your efforts have been in order to get your Christian
children to understand other faiths and to accept other faiths?
Mr Maguire: I would say it is
difficult to measure that. On the behavioural aspect and how children
inter-relate with each other, it seems to be very successful.
Q513 Mr Clelland: It "seems"
to be successful. How do you know? If you cannot measure that,
how do you know?
Mr Maguire: We do not have any
racist incidents at all that I can recall. Children like each
other well. In simple terms, they work well with each other and
respect each other. Nothing has ever been brought to my attention
where someone has referred to another person from another background
in any derogatory fashion. We introduce children to good role
models from other areas and we have not had anything at all which
has been a problem in that area.
Q514 Mr Clelland: When the school was
set up, did it affect the other schools, particularly perhaps
with falling rolls in the area?
Mr Maguire: One of the reasons
the school was so long in coming into being was because the Liverpool
City Council were loath to open a new school at all, because they
said it would affect the contraction in numbers round about. The
children were actually travelling to 64 different schools before
the school was opened, so it seemed reasonable, if you had to
travel, three, four, maybe five or six miles to a school, that
you should have one of your own. It was only because of the working
party, which was led by the Church of England vicar and a Roman
Catholic priest, that the archdiocese picked up the baton and
ran with it. Only later on, when permission was granted for a
school by the DfES, did the City Council give some form of backing
to it. Two schools were affected directly by the opening of the
school: one about three miles away and one in another education
authority where parents had actually driven to take their children.
Now things seem to have settled down into a normal situation.
Q515 Mr Cummings: Could you tell the
Committee why the churches decided to set up a multi-denominational
school? What were the challenges you faced in developing a school
which spans two religious denominations?
Mr Maguire: It came about because
in the centre of the estate is St Cuthbert's church, which is
Church of England. The vicar at the time was the Reverend Trevor
Latham and he was very much part of the community and people tended
to go to him for advice and for support in any kind of community
project. Since he was in situ at the time, he was the person
who led the campaign for a school. They then took this further
to both the archdiocese and diocese and at the time Derek Worlock
was the Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool and David Sheppard was
the Anglican Bishop. They were very good friends and had worked
together on many ecumenical projects on Merseyside. I think they
saw this as an opportunity to do something which would be fundamental
and quite different. They were the driving force in this plus
the two clergy who worked together. That is what gave it its drive
and its thrust.
Q516 Mr Cummings: Was there any great
friction in the area covered by this school?
Mr Maguire: Friction from and
between whom?
Q517 Mr Cummings: Between the two denominations.
Mr Maguire: Prior to the school
opening?
Q518 Mr Cummings: Yes.
Mr Maguire: I do not think there
was particularly. The estate where the school is situated is an
interesting one. It is probably the biggest private housing estate
in Western Europe. People just seemed to be living almost without
a community base or a focal point.
Q519 Mr Cummings: Do you know of any
communities within Liverpool where there is friction?
Mr Maguire: There is less today
than there was many years ago, but certainly Liverpool was not
without its differences of opinion between the two churches, that
is for sure.
| 
