"I want to LIVE at Regina Caeli!"

Barbara Kay reports on a visit to a new hybrid education venture in Bedfordshire

The children chuckled with laughter as they pretended to walk in Christmas pudding, in outer space and then in feathers. The laughter then stopped as they pretended to walk through a quiet church. It started again as they pretended to walk in high heels, roller skates and cowboy boots.

This was the last lesson of the day, an all-age drama lesson at the Regina Caeli UK Academy, a centre for home educators operating in the Catholic tradition. It is an affiliate of Regina Caeli Academy, which was founded in the USA in 2003 and now has 15 locations across the States.

Regina Caeli’s first concern is to help parents – the primary educators of their family – to lead their children to grow in holiness and the knowledge and love of God. In practical terms, it supports home educators with a structured two-day programme in the classical, Catholic tradition and is committed to faithful adherence to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. It receives pastoral support from the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter (FSSP), one of whose priests acts as chaplain and says Mass at the Academy once a month.

Painting at the Angel Club

In April 2018, a small group of people had the vision to set up Regina Caeli’s first academy in the UK. After much planning, visits from representatives of Regina Caeli from the USA and a great deal of prayer, Regina Caeli UK opened its doors just 17 months later, in September 2019. It is based at a hall in Barton Le Clay, a village between Bedford and Luton, and is open on Mondays and Thursdays each week.

When it opened, the Academy had 17 children aged 4-10 on its books. In January 2020 it added three more, with the prospect of younger siblings coming along in September. The children are divided into three classes according to their age. The two younger classes work in the main hall divided by a screen and the oldest class, currently consisting of three girls, works in a side room. All the children wear a navy uniform to give them a sense of community and unity; they come to the centre looking smart and ready to work! Some children have been homeschooled in the past, for others it marks a new chapter in their education. Such is the need for this sort of institution that some families have even moved into the area so that their children can be part of Regina Caeli.

Regina Caeli has its own classical curriculum, using some of the Mother of Divine Grace syllabi, which has been successfully used by educators for the past 16 years. Maria Jones, Centre Coordinator for Education, explained that as this is an American syllabus, it has needed to be adapted for use in the UK, for example focusing on British rather than American history. Phonics, which is usually only taught until Year 2 in the UK, is continued thoroughly in the American syllabus. Every word counts – one of the conversations I overheard was discussing why American English uses the word ‘fall’ for autumn and why it is so appropriate.

Whiteboards in each area bear the timetable for each day, and it is a packed one (“we worked our socks off today” commented one of the teachers). Literacy, Maths and Religion are taught in the mornings when minds are fresh. The oldest class is learning Latin. Lunch is early at Regina Caeli – 11.30 – because at 12.00, everyone stops and says the Angelus together. Then it’s outside for some fresh air and a short session of PE. In the summer, the Academy has the use of an adjacent field.

For the afternoon session, there was some hands-on science going on with the 5 to 8 year olds; they had been learning about plants and were making bottle-gardens with brightly-coloured pansies in plastic bottles cut in half, which were then sealed together and said to form their own ecosystem not requiring watering.

In another room, the oldest class was doing Art, based on Fra Angelico pictures in a beautifully illustrated book about the Creed. One girl painted a beaming resurrected Jesus and a very miserable-looking devil under his feet. This same age group, of 10 and 11 years old, is also looking at ‘Julius Caesar’ in their Drama lessons, at a far earlier age than their contemporaries in state schools “so as not to be frightened of Shakespeare” said their teacher, and also to enjoy a greater range ofhis works.

What struck me was the fact that faith permeated everything – even mathematics; at the front of one of the Maths textbooks it states “God Who created the world using mathematics”. There is a rack of carefully chosen reading books, many overtly spiritual, but all of them wholesome and beautifully illustrated. As I sat looking at them, one little boy came over and pulled out a story told by a baby while in its mother’s womb and shortly after its birth. He said this was his favourite book and that he read it again and again.

There is a distinct atmosphere of one big happy family at Regina Caeli. The children are polite, enthusiastic and eloquent. Of course, as in any family, there are moments which require challenge and reflection. Discipline is based on the St John Bosco method, which aims to be preventive by loving and encouraging (“punishment should be your last resort”). In each class there is an ‘Angel Club’ chart, consisting of four discs, working upwards one red, one amber, one green, and one at the top with a picture of an angel on it. At the beginning of the day, each child has a clothes peg with their name on clipped beside the green disc. Good work that day is rewarded by promotion to the ‘Angel Club’. If the child has to be given a ‘reminder’ to behave, their peg is moved down to the amber disc, and a second reminder results in a further downward move to the red disc. Fortunately, these placings are frequently reviewed. If a child has achieved Angel Club status on 8 days, he or she is given a reward in the form of a prayer card and small stationery gift. These are presented with applause in an end-of-day assembly with parents present.

There are three qualified teachers and a learning support assistant at the Academy. Their commitment and dedication are impressive. One of the teachers lives in Stourbridge in the West Midlands, a four-hour round trip each Monday and Thursday with three children, leaving home before six in the morning and only getting home twelve hours later. Because the Academy hires the hall, everything needs to be set up in the morning and packed up at the end of the day. The hall has to be left clean and tidy by 3.30 pm and all teachers work hard to make this happen. The dream is that one day, the Academy will have a permanent base of its own.

Although the Regina Caeli Academy is unique in the UK at the moment, plans are afoot to open a second hybrid Academy in Yorkshire before too long, so families in that part of the world will benefit from what it has to offer.

“I want to LIVE at Regina Caeli!” said one of the children. It is not hard to understand why.

If you are interested to find out more, please visit the Regina Caeli website: www.rcahybrid.org.uk/ or Facebook page www.facebook.com/ reginacaeliuk