Two casualties of the so-called massacre of the colleges of education in the late 1970s were Culham which was linked to the University of Oxford and Saint Gabriel’s in south London. Both were Church of England foundations and so out of their closures were borne the new St Gabriel’s trust in 1977 and the Culham Educational Foundation in 1980. Initially working independently, collaboration increased until in 2012 they merged to form a single trust, the Culham St Gabriel’s Trust. This history covers the three decades from their origins to their merger in 2012
Culham decided to undertake its own research and development work in the areas of church schools, church colleges/universities and in school based religious education and collective worship. Initially St Gabriel’s focussed on grant giving but increasingly it worked with Culham through the St Gabriel’s Programme. Collaboration also involved working with other trusts especially other church college trusts and the Jerusalem Trust. All the major work undertaken was designed to have nation implications and applications. This included the Church Colleges Research Project, research projects on church schools, the 1990s national conferences on RE, RE teacher residential weekends, the development of RE resources in collaboration with the BBC and Channel4 Education, an early use of the internet through REonline and the collective worship website, and an RE teacher recruitment programme.
Collaboration with the RE Council of England and Wales, and liaison with the diocesan directors of education, the church colleges of HE/universities, national education officers and government were all undertaken on a regular basis. This report provides a strong foundation for future longitudinal studies
