It is hard to believe that the Staff Scholarship trip I planned for 2020, and then again for this year, is already over! Sometimes when you get back into the busy routine of life after a trip away it can seem as if it never happened, but for this trip I feel as if it has been transformative (albeit exhausting!) and will be with me forever. There were many highlights but I will share three with you here.

It was fascinating visiting a variety of schools to see how they teach Religious Education. The UK Education Act of 1944 makes it a requirement for all schools to teach (and assess) Religious Education. This is done in recognition of the importance of learning about this aspect of people's lives in such a multicultural context. One school I visited was Leicester City High School, which has 1800 students and over 50 languages spoken! Their equivalent of Y12 students were preparing for an upcoming National exam on Buddhism and Christianity (as an aside, I also popped into a Geography class which were studying New Zealand!). One primary school class I visited were preparing for a class trip to the local Sikh Temple, while another one was exploring the meaning of various Psalms in the Bible. Across all the schools it was taken for granted that the religious aspect of life was important for understanding the world, and there was a genuine respect for this aspect of life (including valuing non-religious views).

It was also wonderful to visit Whitby. Since starting at St Hilda’s 12 years ago, I have learned a lot about St Hilda who founded and led the Abbey at Whitby in the 600s. I have seen images of the place, read the history and enjoyed the legends, and now I have actually been there! To stand on the same hill overlooking the sea, and walk on the beach, where she would have been, was very moving. Her Abbey was destroyed during the Viking invasions that came in the following centuries, but the ruins of the medieval one that is there are very special to explore. Whitby is also where Captain Cook was an apprentice and eventually set sail in The Endeavour, and the ruins of the medieval Abbey were also the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula. But St Hilda’s leadership in the church at that time, and her passion for education, are still very much a part of Whitby’s identity.

During the last week of my trip I was able to spend some time with the Sisters of the Church in London. This is the community of nuns from where Sisters Geraldine and Etheleen came to New Zealand to establish St Hilda’s. The current group of women were so lovely and welcoming, and were thrilled to strengthen their connection with St Hilda’s through my visit. They have photos on the wall of Sisters Geraldine and Etheleen, and pray for us often. They were interested in the new chapel build, and just school life in general! While the main focus of this particular group is to run a Retreat Centre, there are other groups working in areas of child poverty, domestic violence, and other socio-economic issues in the UK, Canada, Australia and the Pacific.

The whole trip was amazing – I haven’t even mentioned visiting the many churches, cathedrals, and other sacred places such as York Minster, Iona, Westminster Abbey, and Canterbury Cathedral – but these highlights were especially inspiring and I am so grateful to the school for the opportunity to enrich both my teaching and chaplaincy roles in this way.

Dr Gillian Townsley
Chaplain