Profile

Joan McCarthy

A passion for education - by Simon Hart

‘I started working 30 years ago –today is the anniversary, 1 September 1992!’ Joan McCarthy has been director of education of the Archdiocese of Liverpool for barely nine months yet, as she tells the Pic, her experience of working in education is extensive. It was 30 years ago this month that she started out as an RE teacher at St Augustine’s Catholic College in Trowbridge, newly arrived from Ireland where she had gained her BA in Theology and History at Saint Patrick’s Pontifical University in Maynooth.. ‘I have always loved being in education and have seen the benefits,’ she elaborates. ‘I’ve seen what a Catholic school can do. My passion has always been education and children, and my faith is a drive as well. I’m very passionate about Catholic schools and the work they do. We need to be celebrating more what they do because we’re a success story and we do a lot of good. We make such a significant contribution to society and if I’m honest, we are not good at promoting ourselves.’ Joan’s experience of Catholic schools includes six years as deputy head at Cardinal Wiseman Catholic Technology College in Birmingham (2006-12) followed by seven years as head teacher of the St John Houghton Catholic Voluntary Academy in Ilkeston (20122019). During her time in Derbyshire, she was also a director of the St Robert Lawrence Catholic multi-academy trust and this experience of academies should be significant in her role here in Liverpool. Her belief is that ‘the landscape is changing’ with the Government’s Schools’ White Paper ‘Opportunity for All’ outlining a desired direction of travel towards academisation and the formation of strong multi-academy trusts by 2030. Hence the consultation process she is currently overseeing regarding proposals to develop Catholic Multi-Academy Trusts (CMATs) across the Archdiocese of Liverpool. Feedback is due from schools at the end of September and Joan says: ‘Change is difficult but maybe we have to think it offers an opportunity to secure what we’ve got and maybe ensure we protect our future and we do that by taking control of it ourselves.’ Currently there are 14 academies in an archdiocese whose total number of maintained schools is 205. ‘I feel very conscious of the history and tradition of Catholic education in this area and as we move forward, with this landscape with the academies, for me it is absolutely vital that the history and traditions are respected and still kept,’ she continues. ‘The advantage of the academisation system is we can take a little bit more control because if we don’t do this, I worry there’s an agenda out there. There’s a very organised group of people who question Catholic schools, who question Catholic identity, who question the need for them.’ Joan, a trustee of Nottingham diocese, offers other reflections on her work so far in Liverpool which has included ‘restructuring internally and making sure we’re ready to meet the needs of the changing education landscape’. There is also a wish to encourage closer cooperation – ‘sharing resources and training opportunities’ – with Liverpool’s fellow dioceses in the ‘northwest hub’. She talks too about her touchstones: her connection to Sligo, her hometown on the west coast of Ireland, and her faith. And she has a love of volunteering, which took her to the London Olympics and, more recently, to South Africa for four summers of working in township schools in Cape Town – an experience which underlined ‘the value of education and how we can turn people’s lives around’. Not that she has needed too many reminders during the three decades since she turned up at St Augustine’s in Trowbridge for her first day as a teacher. ‘So enthusiastic,’ she says of her younger self, ‘but I still am!’ From next month Joan will be contributing a regular column to the ‘Catholic Pic’