Encountering God

There are many ways our children encounter God and develop their relationships with Him. 

Here are some examples below:

Prayer Club

During a Wednesday lunch time our KS2 children are able to attend a prayer club in our new prayer garden. 

We explore the different ways we can look for God and pray.

Eastertide Theme - meditating and exploring new life, the children have made Easter prayer hands.

Lent Theme - making our Lent promises and exploring how we can develop our prayer life during this time.

Ordinary Time Theme - we went for a prayer walk in search for the things we are thankful to God for. We also looked for God in nature.

The children said, "I see God when I see the leaves float through the air and all around" (Bethan, Y5).

"I feel God when the sun falls on my face" (Orla, Y4).

"I know God is all around us when the wind is blowing" (Carys, Y5).

"When I see the flowers, they remind me of being thankful for life and my family" (Bobby, Y3).

We also read the five finger prayer developed by Pope Francis, which is a prayer practice that assigns each finger something to pray for. We prayed and decorated the five finger prayer to take away with us. The thumb is for those closest to us. The index finger for those who teach, instruct and heal us. The middle finger, our tallest, is for our leaders. The ring finger, our weakest, for those who are weak. The pinky or small finger is for ourselves.

The children also were given a prayer journal that they could record their prayers and thoughts.

Ordinary Time Theme - the children began prayer club using prayer through movement and  in a guided meditation. They listened to nature and focused on the theme of love for the meditation.

Journey with Jesus Prayer Bags

Joining together in prayer is a key element of our Mission Statement. Jesus is the centre of everything we do and engaging in prayer brings Him closer to us. We introduced Prayer Bags last academic year to continue our links between Church, school and home, with prayer being central to all of these.

Each class has a Prayer Bag which will be passed around each family throughout the year, these will change according to the time of the Church year, e.g. Advent and Ordinary Time.

Ordinary Time Prayer Bag

Advent Prayer Bag

Lent Prayer Bag

Easter Prayer Bag

Mary Prayer Bag

Pentecost Prayer Bag

Christian Meditation

Examen

Living Our Faith in the Community

Year 2 were the Chaplaincy Team for the academic year 2022-2023 and they supported our community in the Summer Term 2022. One piece of work they did was based on our RE Summer C topic which linked to Fratelli Tutti. Here is a description of what Year 2 did below:

TBAT: share my understanding of Fratelli Tutti and the create activities which shares the message of including everyone and help those who need it.

For our Fratelli Tutti domain linked in with our RE topic ‘treasures’ we chose a book which brings across the meaning of Fratelli Tutti really well.

‘The Invisible’ by Tom Percival is a moving, powerful story that shines a light on those that feel invisible in our world - and shows us that we ALL belong.

Fratelli Tutti moves us to respond to our sister or brother in need, whoever they are, wherever they may come from. We are challenged to turn outwards, to act as neighbours, and to reach out to all those who are in need. This story helps us to see how we can do this as well as the knowledge from our ‘treasures’ topic encourages us to look after creation and all who are in it.

Y2 thought about how to help those in the community, in particular the elderly. We came up with the idea to visit Hazelhurst Nursing Home to help those who live there, the residents as well as the staff who work there.

We researched what helps others, especially the elderly, feel less lonely, increase their happiness and mindfulness levels.

An activity Y2 came up with was creating a calendar for August where there is an action for each day to think about or do to increase happiness, wellbeing, mindfulness and exercise.

Y2 also painted pictures of their treasures in their lives to share and give to the residents.

Y2 used digital technology to produce an activity booklet encouraging happiness and mindfulness.

When we arrived we introduced ourselves and sang Summer songs and performed our ice cream poem from the Foundation Phase performance

We shared our art work about what our treasures are, we then asked the residents what their treasures are. Y2 gave the residents the art work to keep and they loved this very much.