“We feel strongly that the Oscar Romero Award offers Catholic schools a unique opportunity to reflect in a pragmatic way what it means to live out our mission and ethos in our world today.”

St Brendan’s Sixth Form College – Bristol (Clifton) Collecting all the information together for this Award has made us realise how much of our work as a Catholic College is Mission-based. We are an inclusive college and welcome students from all faiths and none, but have found that all students, whatever their belief, have something to give to others.

St Edward’s School – Romsey (Clifton) The single most important aspect of our having applied for Participator Level has been the self-evaluation that it occasioned. It enabled me to step back and take a more 'global' view of our operation and to get a view of the whole picture which often proves elusive within the context of day to day operations. We feel strongly that the Oscar Romero Award offers Catholic schools a unique opportunity to reflect in a pragmatic way what it means to live out our mission and ethos in our world today. The values this Award celebrates might also form a point of dialogue with other faiths and I would look to work with the Award Coordinators on promoting positive working partnerships with other faith communities and schools.

St John’s Cathedral Catholic Primary School – Portsmouth (Portsmouth) The impact of the Romero Award on our school has been huge. The staff and children have really embraced the example of Oscar Romero as a role model and example of how we need to challenge injustice. It has also given us the opportunity to really review all aspects of our school – our governors have explored our policies and decision making processes to ensure that they reflect our determination to be fair and just ourselves; our senior leaders and teachers have reviewed our curriculum to look at how we can ensure that we are not only teaching about where in the world there is injustice, oppression and inequality but also giving children the tools and self-belief that they can and must make a difference –and our children and their families are being inspired to notice what is wrong and actually address it. It has really given the whole school community a clear purpose – in everything we do we are determined to notice injustice and address it – as a child put it – it’s not good enough anymore to see something sad and feel sad about it – that changes nothing…what Oscar Romero taught us is that we have to speak up and we have to take care of those who everybody else ignores.

Our Lady Immaculate Catholic Primary School – Chelmsford (Brentwood) We believe that our children are our future. It is up to them to look after our world and the people in it. It is therefore essential that we teach them, through the lens of CST, about poverty, climate change and sustainability. By doing so, we are inspiring a new generation to ‘be more’ and ‘serve the poorest in our world’ whilst looking after it… This Award has focused our attention on what we do as a school family, enhancing our catholicity and reinforcing our belief that we can do more, teach more and be more as a loving Catholic community.