Beyond Compliance: Bringing Your Catholic Mission to Life

In our first article, we introduced the CMAT leader's challenge: unifying school improvement, Catholic mission, and trust-level strategy. In our second post, we dived deep into how iAbacus transforms the school SEF and SIP from static documents into dynamic, data-rich processes.

But for a Catholic Multi-Academy Trust, school improvement is only half the story.

The other, equally vital, pillar is your Catholic mission. This is where the Catholic Self-Evaluation Document (CSED) comes in—a critical tool for evaluating your schools' effectiveness in Catholic Life and Mission, Religious Education, and Collective Worship.

The Problem: A Mission on Paper, Disconnected from Practice

For many Catholic schools, the CSED suffers from the same problems as the SEF. It's often a separate, lengthy document, painstakingly completed for the Diocese or a Catholic Schools Inspectorate (CSI) visit, but disconnected from the "main" school improvement plan.

This creates a false divide. It separates "academic" improvement from "faith" improvement, when in reality, they are deeply intertwined.

For you as a CMAT leader, this disconnect is a strategic blind spot. How can you effectively monitor and support the Catholic identity of all your schools? How can you identify and share the incredible best practice happening in one school's chaplaincy with another that is struggling? How do you ensure your schools are "CSI-ready" and that their Catholic mission is a living, breathing part of their daily life, not just a folder on a shelf?

The iAbacus Solution: One Tool, Two Frameworks, One Mission

iAbacus seamlessly solves this by allowing schools to manage both their Ofsted SEF and their CSED in the same simple, visual tool. Here’s how schools within a CMAT can use the template based on the CSI Comparative Evaluation Schedule and Judgement Descriptors (Sept 2025):

1. Reflect & Judge (The "Where are we on our mission?"):

Leaders open their CSED template and see the key CSI framework strands. They can instantly judge their performance in "Catholic Life and Mission," "Religious Education," and "Collective Worship" by sliding the beads on the abacus, using the clear CSI grade descriptors.

2. Evidence & Justify (The "How do we live this out?"):

Leaders click any judgement bead to attach their evidence. For "Collective Worship," they might link to liturgy plans, photos of prayer spaces, and pupil voice surveys. For "Religious Education," they attach curriculum mapping and assessment data. The CSED becomes a vibrant, evidence-backed portfolio of the school's Catholic life.

3. Analyse & Diagnose (The "Why are we strong/developing here?"):

Using the 'Helping and Hindering Factors' analysis, leaders go deeper. A "helping factor" for "Catholic Life and Mission" might be "Strong parish links and active chaplaincy." A "hindering factor" for "Religious Education" could be "Need for more specialist staff CPD." This diagnoses the root causes, turning a judgement into a genuine insight.

4. Plan & Act (The "How do we deepen our mission?"):

From this analysis, a specific, mission-driven improvement plan is built. Actions are created to address the "hindering factors" (e.g., "Source and fund specialist RE CPD") and leverage the "helping" ones (e.g., "Use parish links to launch a new social action project").

An Alternative: The Fully Integrated Framework

While managing two separate templates (SEF and CSED) is a powerful way to ensure focus, iAbacus’s customisation feature offers another compelling option: merging them into one.

Thanks to the flexibility of iAbacus, a CMAT can work with us to create a single, bespoke self-evaluation framework that combines criteria from both the Ofsted Toolkit and the CSI schedule.

Imagine a single abacus where strands like "Curriculum and teaching" and "Personal development and well-being" sit alongside "Catholic Life and Mission" and "Collective Worship."

This approach creates the ultimate holistic tool. It fully breaks down the artificial barrier between "academic standards" and "Catholic mission," allowing leaders to evaluate and plan for the school as a single, faith-led entity. It provides a powerful way to demonstrate how your Catholic values are not just an addition, but the foundation that underpins every aspect of school life and improvement.

The Benefits: A Holistic View for School and Trust

By managing the CSED in iAbacus (either separately or as part of a merged framework), you embed your Catholic mission into the school's continuous improvement cycle.

For Your School Leaders:

• Integrates Mission and Standards: Leaders can finally see how their Catholic identity supports their academic goals. For example, a "Helping Factor" in their CSED (e.g., "Strong sense of community") can be directly linked as a driver for "Personal Development" in their Ofsted SEF.

• Reduces Redundancy: Evidence (like pupil voice on respect) can be used for both the CSED and the SEF, all held in one place.

• Builds CSI Confidence: The CSED is always live, evidence-rich, and ready. It demonstrates a robust, continuous process of self-evaluation for Catholic identity, not a last-minute scramble.

• Empowers All Staff: The visual framework makes it easy for RE leaders, chaplains, and governors to contribute, fostering collective ownership of the school's mission.

For You as a CMAT Leader:

• Instant View of Trust-Wide Mission: Use the 'Overlay' feature to see the CSED judgements from all your schools in one simple view. Instantly identify which schools are exemplars in "Collective Worship" and which require support in "Religious Education."

• Harness Your "Catholic Capital": The 'Stack' feature is profoundly powerful. It aggregates the analysis from all schools. You can instantly see, "What are the top 3 'helping factors' for building 'Catholic Life and Mission' across our trust?" You now have a data-driven way to identify and share best practice, leveraging the expertise already within your CMAT.

• A Truly Holistic Dashboard: For the first time, you have a single dashboard that shows you both the Ofsted (SEF/SIP) and CSI (CSED) evaluations for every school. You can make strategic decisions based on the whole picture of school performance, balancing academic standards with faith-based mission.

You've moved from juggling separate, static documents to having a single, dynamic data source that illuminates every aspect of your CMAT's performance.

In our final article, we’ll look at the third and final piece: how the CMAT central team uses iAbacus to manage its own strategic plan, creating a golden thread from trust-level goals right down to school-level actions.