Trustee Teams, head teachers and sisters from Spain, France, Belgium, Italy and Lithuania met in Madrid to share listening, identity and a common educational project.
On Thursday 8 October, the European Meeting of Trustee Teams, head teachers and Religious of the Assumption began. Over two working days, seventeen participants from schools in Spain, France, Belgium, Italy and Lithuania shared reflection, listening and a vision for the future at the house on Calle Olivos. This meeting continues the journey begun in Rome in October last year.
The network of schools in Spain, which includes Asunción Cuestablanca, Asunción Vallecas, Real Colegio Santa Isabel-La Asunción, Málaga, Miracruz, León, Ponferrada, Gijón and Sarria, was represented by the Trustee Team and the Province.
The work of the meeting was structured around three fundamental goals, with our sights set on 2028: to deepen the identity we share as the Assumption in Europe, to analyse carefully the voice of our educational communities through the surveys carried out last school year, and to design together the next Assumption European Education Congress 2028.
The opening session began with an expressive activity entitled “A word from my school”, in which each participant placed their school on a large map of Europe, associating it with a key word. Words such as Misión, Pasión, Herencia and Compromiso from Spain joined Sens, Échanges and Croissance from France and Belgium, as well as Comunità and Inclusione from Italy and Lithuania. These terms in different languages draw a single face and express the deep unity in diversity that characterises the Assumption. As part of this opening, Sr Lola Herrera, Provincial of Spain, extended an invitation to participants with the words “Dare to be light”.
One of the main threads of the meeting is listening to our educational communities. Last school year, teachers, pupils and families from our schools responded to a survey, as in the other participating countries. Today those responses have reached the table: the participants, organised by respondent group (teachers, families and pupils), read together what surprises us, what confirms our experience and what we do not yet know, seeking how each community expresses in its own words what it means to educate in the Assumption.
A word of thanks to everyone who gave their time to answer the surveys: their contributions have made it possible for the voice of each school to be the foundation on which the future of Assumption education in Europe will continue to be built.
Listening to these surveys seeks to respect the voice of each country and each school, in the unity in diversity that characterises the Assumption.
Communication Team
Province of Spain