We as Catholic educators and leaders must follow the mission of the Church to serve the vulnerable and those most in need of social justice. Every leader and teacher in Northern Ireland schools we visited have checked their egos at the door to prioritize collaboration among educators to put all-ability children’s learning first. It was evident that the growth mindset culture supports an inclusive environment. We recommend adopting the Framework for Serving Students with Disabilities in Catholic Schools by Michael Boyle entitled Ensuring A Place at The Table to guide administrators in supporting a systematic approach to inclusion throughout the Archdiocese.

Through our visits to schools, we saw that in the Northern Ireland system, all leaders’ dispositions are ready to serve all-ability students and promote inclusion. We know that this is not yet the case in our system. Therefore, we recommend that we start by addressing the disposition of all our stakeholders in order to follow the mission of Catholic Social Teachings. As suggested by Michael Boyle we can use faith formation to ensure a Catholic education for all, including students with disabilities.

Carol Dweck’s Growth Mindset and Universal Design for Learning mindset were embedded in the school cultures in Northern Ireland to support social-emotional and academic learning. Most importantly, the leaders and teachers model these mindsets at all times. In our system, leaders are often apprehensive because they feel they cannot serve the student either because they don’t have the resources yet or they worry that a teacher is spending too much time with one child and ignoring others (fixed mindset). The goal is to shift the mindset to problem solve so a leader can say “I am determined to find resources to help my teacher reach all students” (growth mindset).

In order for us to transfer what we saw to our system, we must have a shared understanding of our commitment to the student must be achieved through a systematic approach to serving students with disabilities. A common language among leaders, parents, and students is needed. To support this effort, we urgently recommend that every leader in our organization reads Michael Boyle, Ensuring A Place at The Table and the latest NCEA Brief, Universal Design for Learning: A Framework for Educating ALL learners by Carie Outlashian and Victoria Graf. These two resources speak directly to the hearts of every catholic school educator and provide practical steps to shift dispositions and begin the work to fulfill the mission of educating all of God’s children.