The Jesuit European Committee for Primary and Secondary Education (JECSE) brings together Jesuit schools across Europe and the Middle East, fostering collaboration, formation and the sharing of good practices in the field of Jesuit education. It works to strengthen the Catholic and Ignatian identity of Jesuit schools and support their shared educational mission.

On 6-9 October 2026, JECSE brought together Primary School Heads from across its network in Ariccia, near Rome, for a gathering entitled “Sharing the Best We Have: Faith, Community, Mission.” Building on the reflections of previous international gatherings, the conference explored how school leaders can nurture their own faith, foster communities of belonging and bring the Ignatian mission to life in their schools. In this article, Agnieszka Baran, Director of JECSE and Secretary for Primary and Secondary Education of JCEP, reflects on the gathering and its key insights.

How can Jesuit schools remain deeply rooted in their Catholic and Ignatian identity while welcoming children and families from diverse backgrounds? How can school leaders nurture their own faith, build communities of belonging, and ensure that their mission comes alive in everyday school life?

These questions accompanied the Primary School Heads of the JECSE network during their gathering at Casa Divin Maestro in Ariccia, near Rome, from 6 to 9 October 2026. Under the theme “Sharing the Best We Have: Faith, Community, Mission” primary school leaders from across Europe came together to reflect, pray, share experiences and strengthen their common commitment to Jesuit education.

Continuing the journey begun in Jogjakarta

The conference builds on the reflections initiated at JESEDU-Jogjakarta 2024, where members of the Jesuit Global Network of Schools gathered to explore what it means to educate for faith in the 21st century. The global seminar invited Jesuit educators to deepen their Catholic identity while engaging in mature dialogue with other religions, cultures and increasingly secular societies.

For JECSE, these questions continue to inspire reflection across the European network. The new cycle of thematic conferences, “Sharing the Best We Have: Faith, Community, Mission,” brings the insights of JESEDU-Jogjakarta into the everyday realities of our schools and leadership teams. The journey began with the Secondary School Heads in Málaga in October 2025, followed by Pastoral teams in Loyola in February 2026. Now, Primary School Heads bring their own perspectives, reflecting on how pres-secondary education nurtures faith, belonging and a shared sense of mission. The cycle will continue in 2027 with a gathering for Pedagogical Leaders.

Primary education has a distinctive place in this conversation. It is often where children first experience school as a community, begin to develop their understanding of belonging and relationships, and encounter questions of meaning, values and faith. Families, too, may be discovering for the first time what makes a Jesuit school distinctive. This gives primary school leaders both a particular responsibility and a valuable contribution to make to the wider mission of the network.

Mission: rediscovering what brings us together

The conference opened with a reflection on mission, the shared purpose that gives Jesuit schools their common Ignatian identity. Fr Nicola Bordogna SJ, representing the Fondazione Gesuiti Educazione (FGE), the Jesuit Education Foundation of the Euro-Mediterranean Province, officially opened the gathering and helped launch the conversation on what it means to remain faithful to this identity in a rapidly changing world.

Remaining faithful to our mission requires more than preserving traditions; it calls us to communicate our values authentically through relationships, educational choices and the daily life of our communities.

Jesuit schools welcome children and families with different religious backgrounds, beliefs and experiences. This diversity raises important questions: How can schools remain rooted in the Gospel while ensuring that every child feels welcome? How can they share the richness of the Catholic and Ignatian tradition while respecting the freedom of each person?

Rather than offering easy answers, the gathering created space for honest reflection on these questions and on both the opportunities and challenges facing Jesuit education today.

Faith: making room for interiority and encounter

The second day turned towards faith, inviting participants to look inward and reconnect with their own spiritual lives.

In the demands of school leadership, time for silence, prayer and personal reflection can easily become secondary. Yet Ignatian spirituality reminds us that authentic leadership begins with the capacity to listen: to ourselves, to others and to God.

Anne-Marie Turroques and Christine Jeay guided participants in exploring interiority and what it means to lead from a place of personal authenticity. Through guided reflection and group sharing, school leaders were invited to consider how greater awareness of their own inner lives can help them accompany others with greater attentiveness and compassion.

Francisco Machado then led an Ignatian prayer workshop, offering participants opportunities to explore concrete ways of developing their personal relationship with God.

The day offered a valuable reminder that faith is not simply part of a school leader's professional responsibility. It is also a personal journey that needs time, nourishment and care. The capacity to accompany others grows from the willingness to attend to one's own spiritual life.

Community: listening, discerning and deciding together

On the third day, the reflections on faith and mission came together in the theme of community.

Personal faith and interior growth are not ends in themselves. They invite us to turn towards others, build relationships and contribute to communities shaped by the Gospel. For school leaders, this also raises a practical question: how can the ways we listen, communicate and make decisions reflect the values we seek to promote in our schools?

Fr José Olea SJ introduced participants to spiritual conversation and communal discernment, two important practices in the Ignatian tradition. These approaches encourage people to listen deeply, share their experiences honestly, remain open to different perspectives and seek together where the Spirit may be leading a community.

Participants then explored how these practices might be implemented in their own schools. Small-group conversations allowed them to reflect on real leadership challenges, learn from one another's experiences and consider how decision-making processes can become more participatory and discerning.

The programme also included networking tables, offering further opportunities to exchange experiences and explore how to bring what we had learned back to our Provinces and schools. A communal Examen, led by Roberta Camilleri, offered a moment to look back on the day's experiences, recognise what had been meaningful and consider what might be carried forward.

These moments of shared reflection highlighted an essential aspect of Ignatian leadership: community is not simply a structure within which a school operates. It is something leaders continually build through the way they listen, accompany others and make decisions together.

Learning through encounter and shared experience

Throughout the gathering, presentations and workshops were complemented by prayer, personal reflection, small-group conversations and informal encounters. This combination is central to JECSE's formation approach: creating space not only to learn new ideas, but also to experience the values and practices being discussed.

The presence of colleagues from different countries and educational contexts offered participants the opportunity to discover both the richness of their diversity and the purpose they share. The challenges facing primary schools may take different forms across Europe and the Middle East, but the commitment to accompanying children and families, nurturing hope and living the Ignatian mission creates a strong foundation for mutual learning.

Bringing the experience back to our schools

The conference concluded with a pilgrimage in Rome, offering participants a final opportunity to reflect on their shared journey and reconnect with the spiritual roots of their educational mission.

As the school leaders return to their communities, the invitation is to carry these reflections into everyday practice: to protect time for prayer and interiority, to create spaces where genuine listening can take place, and to involve colleagues more deeply in discerning the direction of their schools.

“Sharing the Best We Have: Faith, Community, Mission” is more than a conference theme. It is an invitation to consider what we, as Jesuit school communities, are called to share with the children, families and educators entrusted to our care.

Faith, community and mission cannot be separated. Our mission gives direction to our work; faith nourishes our personal commitment; and community enables us to live that commitment together.

By listening to one another, learning from different experiences and making room for God's presence in our decisions, we can continue to build schools that are faithful to their identity, open to the world and deeply committed to the flourishing of every child.

The journey begun in Jogjakarta continues — in our schools, in our relationships and across the JECSE network — as we seek to share the best we have in the service of young people and the common mission of Jesuit education.