At St Bede’s we strive to enable what John’s Gospel describes as “human flourishing”. The Christ centred values at the heart of the Gospels can only be realised when pupils develop their virtuous behaviour. “These values have to be enacted, though, through the practice of their corresponding virtues. Growth in the virtues, through the pursuit of a human excellence which exemplifies Gospel values and which is embodied in the whole life of the school community, is the means of achieving those outcomes.” Bishop Marcus Stock. These virtues are categorised as theological, moral, civic, intellectual and performance. At St Bede’s we can fulfil our mission to “love, respect and serve as disciples of Jesus Christ” through living out our selected virtues.
Every human being is created in God’s image and likeness and therefore is valuable and worthy of respect. Human life at every stage of development, from conception to natural death, is precious and thus worthy of protection and respect.
Catholic schools should exhibit the following four fundamental characteristics which promote the permanent principles of Catholic social teaching: the dignity of the human life, the common good, subsidiarity and solidarity.
Pope Saint John Paul II, in his writings and homilies, consistently use the term ‘value’ in ways that challenge modern societies and cultures to re-discover the foundation of their core values and principles: “An urgent task awaits you: to re-establish the bonds which have been strained and sometimes broken between the cultural values of our time and their lasting, Christian foundation.”
This is respected in statements of the Church relating specifically to Catholic schools: “For this reason the Catholic school, in committing itself to the development of the whole man, does so in obedience to the solicitude of the Church, in the awareness that all human values and their fulfilment and unity in Christ.”
