Prayer 🙏🏽
Throughout the day our school community comes together in prayer, Meditation and Collective Worship.
At the end of the day, we join our peers either on the playground or together in whole school assemblies to pray and sing our school song, or another of the hymns we know. Our wonderful children enjoying planning and delivering the Gospel assemblies and Collective Worship, and our dedicated staff support them with this. The Chaplaincy Team Members take an active role in supporting classes with planning and preparing Collective Worship. The children enjoy Collective Worship in the spirituality garden too.
When we pray with the children:
- We take them with us to God
- We teach them how to relate to Jesus trustingly
- We show them who to turn to in times of need
- We strengthen their faith and the family
- We give them a gift which stays with them for life
Prayer and becoming closer to God is important to all at St. Patrick's.
Children frequently use their prayer journals to reflect on our prayers, where they think about their actions and how they can grow even closer to God.
Each week, after Gospel assembly one teacher shares a child who has acted on the mission, and shown how they are closer to God. This child is then given a very special bookmark that reminds them of how important we all are to God and how important He is to us.
Children worked together to create prayers for Peace.
Spirituality across the school
You can see our R.E. learning on the R.E. pages of the weekly newsletters (see the home page of the school website). This is where you will also read the pupil's voice's where they are telling you what they think about R.E. at St. Patrick's. School also uses the Mark 10 Mission resources to listen to the word of God, pray and worship together.
We pray in different areas of the school, including in our spiritual garden where we often reflect and give thanks for the world God has created.
The Year 6 Chaplaincy Team Members read Bible stories and pray at lunch times with children in KS1.
Collective Worship and Gospel assemblies across the school.
Gospel assemblies led by the Chaplaincy Team Members
Our Chaplaincy Team Members have been planning, preparing and leading Gospel assemblies. Year 6 delivered an assembly on the Epiphany and Year 5 delivered an assembly on the Baptism of the Lord.
During Lent we reflect and ask for forgiveness, and prepare to celebrate Jesus's resurrection.
We have been remembering Mary and coming together in prayer, singing Ava Maria, and then presenting her with flowers that we have made. While we laid the flowers in front of Mary, we said the Hail Mary.
We enjoy Mass with different Priests and welcome Bishops to the school to teach us more about God and help us to live as he wanted us to.
We have had a very special visit from Bishop Hudson. Here, he is sharing the story ‘The Man Who Planted Trees’ with Key Stage Two and visiting the Reception Class.
We gathered to reflect on the Station of The Cross with Father John. We have Mass with Father John in Church and in school.
It was beautiful and very special for us to be part of such a large group coming together in prayer and worship. 🙏 It was fantastic to see children from other Catholic schools taking part. It was also very interesting for our children to see inside the crypt, under the church. We are very grateful to Fr Chris Vipers for agreeing to celebrate for us in the Westminster Cathedral Crypt
Pupil voice
Each week a class attends Mass with Father John, and at special times of the year we attend Mass as a whole school community. Our families are also invited to join us in Mass and get a weekly reminder in the newsletter.
