ROE
ARCHIVE Religious Orders in Education

The thinking was that this Collaborative Trust would exercise, fully or in part, according to need, those legal, financial and inspirational responsibilities of educational trusteeship that were formerly carried out by these individual congregations. The ambition was to create a new community of schools and colleges and so secure the future of an education that remained infused with the spirit of their founders.

The group met monthly from September 2019 to July 2022 and we shared our findings with ROE members at the termly plenary meetings. At every stage we had productive discussions with the CES, and COR was also supportive of our work. We also had the invaluable assistance of Gillian Cawley as our facilitator.

In the first year of the project, we drafted the vision, mission, purpose and the guiding principles of a collaborative trust, together with its vision and guiding principles for education.

We presented these to members for consultation in July 2020 as the July 6th Proposal. In the second year of the project, we divided into two sub-groups – legal and financial -and began researching these aspects of a collaborative trust. We presented our preliminary findings at the December 2020 plenary of members to ascertain their views.

In the third year of the project, September 2021 to July 2022, we decided on a name – the Gaudete Trust. By then five Religious Orders had decided to join the Trust and we agreed on the final version of a Charter, including a Vision of Education based on the charisms of these Orders.

On the basis of this Charter, the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales granted the Gaudete Trust the status of a Public Juridic Body. Then, again with the help of the CES, we drafted a CIO Constitution and were delighted in February 2023 when the Charity Commission granted the Gaudete Trust this status.

In September 2022 the steering group held its last meeting and handed over to a shadow Gaudete Trust Board. The group is very proud of its achievement. It was a truly collaborative venture by representatives of 12 Religious Orders, including two lay people. It has resulted in the birth of a unique educational trust which will honour and develop the charisms of the Founding Orders within a family of schools dedicated to offering a transforming, inclusive and ecological Catholic education.

If any religious order would like to find out more about how the Gaudete Trust might work for them or would simply like more information, then please contact Brenda Wallace FCJ.