Prayer & Liturgy

Whole School Prayer and Celebration of the Word

Each Monday, our school comes together for our gospel assembly.  This enables us to share and explore Sunday’s  gospel message and reflect on how we can live this out in our daily lives.  Children from each class evaluate these assemblies.

On Fridays, our school meets together to celebrate our week together.  This includes elements of Collective Worship through prayer

Every two or three weeks we have a Celebration Assembly where children are recognised for their hard work and behaviour, including a designated St Mother Teresa award for children who have followed the example of this wonderful saint and who have been outstanding examples of our values and virtues during the week.

Class-based Prayer

Each class is given several opportunities to pray throughout the day and week, with one of these being a more formal Pupil-prepared prayer session which is planned, led and evaluated by the children and with support of their class teachers according to their age and stage of development. 

Pupil-prepared Prayer

Each prayer session follows the same structure and children use the diocesan planning board to organise their sessions.

Gather            play music, sit in a certain way, light a candle, look at an image or artefact

Word              readings from scripture

Respond          write a post-it, write a prayer, do an activity e.g. art, open prayer etc

Mission           take something home, complete a weekly challenge, remember something etc

These sessions are evaluated by other children in their class.

On Wednesdays, children either go to mass (according to a timetable established by the Prayer & Liturgy Coordinator) or carry out an Examen, an opportunity to reflect on their relationship with God during the middle for the day.  On Thursdays, children share a Mark 10 Mission Liturgy and undertake some of the mission activities.

Children are taught the full range of Catholic Prayers which are designated by the BDES as ‘prayers to be known’ and children learn different prayers in different year groups.  Last year, children learned new prayers for the beginning of the school day, prayers before and after lunch and at the end of the day.