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Headteachers of Catholic schools in England in the early twenty-first century are facing unprecedented challenges in exercising their role. In addition to concerns about funding and recruitment, le...

Learning and teaching have traditionally been viewed as a direct interpersonal classroom activity in educational settings. New forms of teaching and evaluation have emerged as a result of technological advancements, and they have gradually become a more prevalent aspect in education. With the advancement of information technology in general, and the Internet and online technologies in particular, there has been a growing emphasis on the development of distance learning methods, which allows students to expand their learning beyond the constraints of space and time. The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of a case-study investigation into student perceptions of the addition of an e-learning component as part of their experience of an M.A. programme in Catholic School Leadership at St Mary's University, Twickenham. Students were able to participate in a "virtual classroom" by engaging in online learning, where they were able to share discussions sparked by online questions. As a result, the introduction of online learning represents a significant advancement that has the potential to impact pedagogy and assessment. As a result of this research, the following conclusion can be drawn: While there were some concerns regarding the facility's implementation, students generally agreed that online activities improved the quality of their education.

In 2017, I conducted the first phase of research in which I set out to explore the most pressing challenges faced by headteachers of Catholic primary and secondary schools in England. Twenty-one headteachers at a diocesan conference were invited to respond to a written question, and it emerged that one of the prevalent themes—or ‘categories of discourse’—was that of the maintenance of ‘spiritual capital’ in Catholic schools. The concept of ‘spiritual capital’ was identified and explored by Grace (2002), who indicated that it would be unlikely that sources of spiritual capital would continue to be of ongoing benefit if they were not actively preserved and sustained by the present generation of Catholic school leaders. In the context of Catholic education, this, therefore, provides a significant line of enquiry. In the light of this, I pursued a second phase of research, in which I conducted semi-structured interviews with nine of the headteachers who had taken part in the first phase of the research. The aim was to explore underlying reasons that lay behind the responses from the first phase of the enquiry and to engage in an in-depth examination of the discourse. In an analysis of the results, it was evident that, from the perspective of these headteachers, the nurturing and transmission of spiritual capital continues to represent one of the critical challenges that headteachers in Catholic schools face today. This chapter presents an examination of the responses provided by the headteachers who took part in the second phase of the investigation and to propose potential approaches toward the renewal of spiritual capital in Catholic schools in the future. Whilst the sample was small, my hope is that the findings of the research and the contributions made by the headteachers who took part will encourage more headteachers and leaders in Catholic schools to engage in the debate.

Within the context of a national shortage of high quality applicants for senior leadership posts, there is a need to nurture future leaders in Catholic primary and secondary schools and to promote their professional development and formation. If they are to be fully effective, teachers in Catholic schools need continually to develop their leadership skills and, crucially, they need to understand how they can best support the educational mission of the Catholic Church. This paper tells the story of the establishment and continuing development of a unique M-level programme, which sets out to combine a Catholic philosophy of education with the principles and practice of effective school leadership.

Traditionally, in educational contexts, learning and teaching has been seen as a direct interpersonal classroom activity. However, with the development of information technology in general and Internet and online technologies in particular, there has been an increasing emphasis on the development of distance learning methods, providing opportunities to extend boundaries of space and time. In this paper, the author sets out to present the findings of a case-study enquiry into student perceptions of the introduction of an e-learning component as part of their experience of an M.A. programme in Catholic School Leadership at St Mary’s University College, Twickenham. By engaging with online learning, students were able to participate in a “virtual classroom” through which they were able to share discussions initi- ated by questions that were provided online. The introduction of online learning, therefore, represents a significant development that had a potential impact on pedagogy and assessment. This paper concludes that, whilst there were some anxieties about the introduction of the facility, students acknowledged that, generally, online activities enhanced the quality of their education.

In spite of their academic and social success, Catholic schools in England have been subject to a variety of challenges and changes in recent years. This paper draws on the findings of an investigation based on interviews that the writer carried out among a number of headteachers working in Catholic schools in the Midlands and south-east England. The intention of the investigation was to elicit their views about the leadership challenges they face in their experience of headship. In considering the challenges that headteachers in Catholic schools face, the writer concludes that it seems they encounter significant and increasing tensions in attempting to fulfil the faith mission of the Catholic Church within a prevailing secular culture and a competitive educational environment.

During 1999–2000, the writer carried out survey of six randomly selected Catholic secondary schools in England to examine the attitudes of stakeholder groups towards Citizenship and Personal, Social and Health Education. Questionnaires were completed by six governors, 12 parents, 139 pupils, 12teachers and six school leaders, providing insight into perceptions of the purposes of selected components of Citizenship and Personal, Social and Health Education, viz. Citizenship Education, Moral Education and Sex Education. Drawing on Hornsby-Smith’s(1996) definition of contrasting perspectives, which he characterises as ‘Open’ and ‘Closed’ Catholicism, the enquiry located attitudes of the stakeholder groups along a continuum of values. While there was evidence of consensus across stakeholder groups within each component, differences in attitudes were also identified. The results indicated that governors and school leaders adopt more ‘Open’ attitudes towards Citizenship Education compare with pupils, teachers and parents; that school leaders adopt more ‘Open’ attitudes towards Moral Education compared with pupils; and that pupils and teachers adopt more ‘Open’ attitudes towards Sex Education compared with governors. One conclusion is that these results demonstrate that, when traditional religious values are challenged by rapid social and technological changes, stakeholder groups in faith schools are faced with added tensions to resolve.[Author]

There has been a growing interest in the application of information and communication technology (ICT) as a means of improving and extending participation in Higher Education and in its impact on pedagogy. Six years ago, two students were recruited to a Masters Degree programme at St Mary’s University, London, as Full Distance Learners. Full Distance Learning implies that through asynchronous participation, students are not required to be together at the same time but can access course materials and communicate with tutors and other students flexibly at their own time and convenience through a virtual learning environment (VLE). Numbers have grown exponentially and, currently, there are more than fifty Full Distance Learners engaged at some point in the programme. This paper sets out to explore the personal reflections of the experiences of Full Distance Learners who have successfully completed the course. Adopting a phenomenological approach, it was possible for the researcher to explore individual perceptions of students in order to evaluate their particular experiences, which are not often studied. Consequently, it was possible to interpret the benefits and limitations of studying as Full Distance Learners from their own experiences. It was hoped that an examination of the experiences and perceptions of individuals from their own personal points of view would indicate to what extent they would support, inform and challenge conventional practice.

Techniques are described for optimising the Ewald sum in the simulation of systems containing large numbers of charged particles. Expressions are given for the best choice of parameters to maximise performance for a specified accuracy. The algorithm for the real-space sum uses a “small-cell” version of the link-cell method. Various other computational details are discussed. In the simulation of real systems there is considerable scope for speeding the calculation by redcing cutoffs, without loss of accuracy.

A study is made of four algorithms which integrate the rotational equations of motion for rigid linear molecules. They are leapfrog algorithms in the sense that the quantities saved between time steps are the on-step orientation and the mid-step angular velocity. Thermostatted versions of the algorithms as well as conventional energy-conserving versions are described. The algorithms are extensively tested in simulations of liquid nitrogen, the aim being to study the effect of increased time steps on a range of measured properties. The most successful algorithm, based on applying a lenght constraint to the axis vector, shows remarkable stability and can be used with very large time steps.

The truncated octahedron (TO) and the rhombic dodecahedron (RD) are two space filling shapes, which have special advantages as simulation cells for molecular dynamics [1, 2]. This article addresses the particular problem of how to incorporate the Ewald sum [3, 4] in simulations employing these unusual boundary conditions.

A new implicit rotational integrator for the orientation of rigid molecules is introduced, and compared with an existing explicit integrator. Both algorithms are categorised as leapfrogs since the quantities saved between time steps are on the on-step orientation and the mid-step angular momentum. Orientations may be expressed in terms of principal axis vectors or, as in the implementations used here, quaternions. Thermostatted versions of the algorithms as well as conventional energy-conserving versions are described. The algorithms are extensively tested in simulations of liquid water, the aim being to study the effect of increased time steps on a range of measured properties. The implicit algorithm is superior to the explicit algorithm, and can be used with time steps up to 3 fs with energy-conserving dynamics. When thermostatted, it may be used with time steps up to at least 6 fs.

A systolic loop method for parallel molecular dynamics, previously written in Occam, is reimplemented in Fortran using a general message-passing library. The method is extended to include a conventional neighbour list, fully distributed over the processors. A modification of the systolic loop method, called systolic replication, permits a parallel implementation of the fastest known sequential algorithm, in which a link-cell spatial decomposition is used to form the distributed neighbour list. The performance of each method, for a liquid argon simulation, is measured on a Transputer system and analysed in terms of the concept of scaleability. Some measurements are also made using i860 processors. The best performance achieved is 5000 particle moves per second, using 28 Transputers.

It is evident that secondary schools organise themselves in different ways for the purposes of pastoral organisation. In general these can be characterised as either horizontal or vertical structures, depending on whether a Year or House system has been adopted. From a survey of secondary schools in one particular local education authority, it appears that the most common and popular approach for secondary schools to organise pastoral care is based on a Year (horizontal) system in which Heads of Year have overall responsibility for pupils in one age‐group. However, one potential problem is that such an arrangement may give rise to an artificial separation of pastoral and academic concerns. In comparing and contrasting the respective advantages of Year and House systems of pastoral organisation and management, David Fincham examines a model in which a school sets out to combine pastoral and academic concerns by establishing a vertical (House) system. Whilst acknowledging that pastoral care implies...

Among several finite-difference algorithms which are used in MD simulation three popular ones are: the leapfrog, the Verlet and the Beeman. All three algorithms produce exactly the same particle trajectories, but they differ in terms of definition of the velocity and hence give different values of kinetic energy or temperature for the system. Evaluation of the temperature of a simulated system can be based on the Taylor expansion of coordinates, velocities or kinetic energies; leading to expressions which we characterise as being of the Verlet type, Beeman type or corrected-leapfrog type. Twelve different expressions for evaluation of the kinetic energy of a system are discussed and compared by means of a one-dimensional two-particle system and a liquid simulation. The results, consistent in both tests, show that the Verlet expressions underestimate the kinetic energy while the Beeman expressions overstimate it. In terms of conservation of total energy the corrected-leapfrog expressions prove to be superior. We have also been able to suggest some improved expressions which give the correct average kinetic energy with even smaller fluctuations in total energy.

Two new programs perform molecular dynamics simulations on molecular and ionic materials, respectively. The first simulates systems of small molecules, treated dynamically as rigid bodies, with interactions of the site-site Lennard-Jones form, plus point charges. The second simulates systems of point ions, which may be made polarizable by means of the shell model, treated by the method of adiabatic dynamics. Both programs handle Coulombic interactions in periodic boundaries by means of the Ewald sum. Force evaluations make use of efficient neighbor-search algorithms. The programs incorporate extensive analysis options in terms of structural and dynamic correlation functions. The programs are controlled by a command language, Dynamo, which provides a good environment for further development, as well as ease of use and flexibility in the choice of simulation protocol.

Parallel computers are a very cost-effective way of providing high performance computational power, though at present it is not always easy to use them effectively. Molecular dynamics simulation is intrinsically highly parallel in nature, both in the force evaluation phase of the timestep and in the motion integration phase. Methods are described which implement molecular dynamics simulation on two parallel computers: the Distributed Array Processor (DAP), and networks of Transputers. On the DAP, lattice dynamics can be studied by means of a geometrical decomposition which gives one processing element (PE) to each ion or molecule. The method can be modified for liquids by exchanging molecules between PEs when necessary. An alternative approach for molecular liquids maps pair interactions, rather than molecules, onto PEs. In the Transputer case, processors are connected in a ring and molecule data circulate in such a way that all required pair interactions may be evaluated. The data movements take place in parallel with the computation so little loss of efficiency arises from communication delays.

(1982). The Implications of the Concept of Lifelong Education for the Secondary School in the United Kingdom. International Journal of Lifelong Education: Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 223-235.

In molecular dynamics computer simulation of liquids it is important to use as large a timestep as possible in order to sample phase space rapidly and save on computer expense. The effect of the resulting algorithm errors in the trajectories of the molecules is not well understood. An empirical investigation into this question is reported. Several simulations differing only in the timestep used are compared. It is found that much larger timesteps than usual can be employed without producing significant errors in observed thermodynamic, structural or dynamic properties.

Algorithms are presented which enable molecular dynamics simulations of liquids to be performed most efficiently on the Cray-1 vector processing computer. For 256 atoms interacting via the Lennard-Jones potential the CPU time per step of the simulation is 22 ms.

The implementation of molecular dynamics simulation on parallel computers needs a method which distributes over the processors both the evaluation of pair interactions and the integration of particle motions. This paper introduces several ways to achieve this, all based on the systolic loop concept. Each particle has a home processor which integrates its motion. In the evaluation of the interactions, the particle data circulate around the ring of processors in such a way that every particle meets every other particle, enabling all the pair interactions to be evaluated. The methods are suitable for use with a spherical cut-off or with a neighbour list. Three possible sources of inefficiency are discussed in detail. These are: imperfect load balancing during the force evaluation; communication delays during the force evaluation; and communication delays in accumulating thermodynamic quantities. In each case the loss of efficiency is only significant if the number of processors approaches the number of particles, which is unlikely to be the case in practice. Also, if the parallel computer is constructed from transputers, their ability to simultaneously calculate and communicate can reduce communication delays in the force evaluation. The methods have been tested on systems of up to 130 transputers.

(1989). Towards an Evaluation of Pastoral Care. Pastoral Care in Education: Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 30-38.

The term “molecular simulation” covers a variety of techniques that can be applied to many problems in classical statistical mechanics, ranging from lattice spin models to the dynamics of protein molecules. Two well-established techniques. Metropolis Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics, serve to illustrate the computational problems involved. The requirement for powerful and cost-effective computing has led to an interest in parallel computers in this field. Parallel computers are defined as computers having several processors working simultaneously under the control of an application program. The processors may obey common (SIMD) or individual (MIMD) instruction streams. The ICL DAP is an example of the former; the Intel hypercube is an example of an MIMD or concurrent machine employing conventional microprocessors. The INMOS Transputer is a high-performance microprocessor designed specifically for concurrent processing. SIMD computers may be programmed in versions of Fortran extended to include ...