Catholic Life News

Fr Kristian and Deacon Michael joined us in school to mark the beginning of Lent with a liturgy of the word for Ash Wednesday. We took time to reflect and make a positive promise to change something in our lives as we journey towards Easter. At the end of the service, as everyone received a cross of ashes on their foreheads, Fr Kristian explained that this was an outward sign of God's love for us.

Willow class led the school and wider community in a Prayer for Christian Unity. To mark the 1700th anniversary of the writing of the Nicene Creed they helped us to reflect on the Trinity as a focus for unity. It was lovely to be able to invite members of different church communities to join us for this event.

Out GIFT team led the school in a short liturgy to mark Epiphany. Alongside readings, prayers and songs they also helped children from every class create Epiphany blessings for their classroom doors. These have been hung over our doorways asking for blessings on all who enter our school and that Christ will be with us throughout the year.

Keystage 2 led our school and parish community in a joyful celebration of the Christmas story in our annual Carol Service. They read, sang and played beautifully. We were delighted to be welcomed by the parish of St Andrew's (currently home to our parish of St James') for the first time.

Our GIFT team led our Harvest Liturgy. We heard the Old Testament story of Ruth and Naomi and were reminded of our Laudato Si promises to care for our common home and each other. As always our school community was very generous and we have a wonderful amount of food to take to CHAT for our local foodbank.

We joined together with many other schools to celebrate the 10th anniversary of our academy trust - CAST. As well as taking part in an online liturgy and planting a beautiful rowan tree we used the celebration to raise money for the Catholic Children's Society. Our GIFT team drew the CAST symbol on our playground and each class took turns to cover it with pennies.

The whole school joined together to celebrate Mass to mark the start of a new school year and the end of the Season of Creation. As part of the celebration, each class made a pledge to play their part in caring for our common home and each child added their name or individual pledge on a fig fruit or leaf to our tree of promises.

The Year 5 children who have applied to be part of next year's GIFT team led the school in a celebration of the Word for Ascension Day. They did a fantastic job. They will soon have their interviews with the adults who support the GIFT team and be given their roles for next year.

As part of our aim towards prayer, action and giving during Lent, we held a fundraising day for CAFOD. The focus for fundraising this year is to support fishing communities in Liberia through purchasing technical and safety equipment and so the children enjoyed a range of fish themed activities. These included magnetic fishing, flip the kipper, fish themed battleships and fishy dancing and yoga. Each child had the chance to throw a coin or two into our giant fishing net, all the money collected will be sent to CAFOD for their Lent Appeal.

On the last day of term, we celebrated Holy Week in a Day.

Each class led a short reflection on part of Jesus' journey through Holy Week. The day started with Acorns celebrating Jesus' joyful arrival in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, followed by Maple leading us through the events of the Last Supper. Sycamore then took us to the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus was arrested and told us about Peter's denial. In the afternoon, Oak led a moving reflection on Jesus' crucifixion and finally Willow shared with us the joy of His resurrection on Easter Day.

We were joined during the day by family and parishioners, many of whom stayed to share a cup of tea and hot cross bun together.

Every Thursday during Lent, we have gathered as a school to follow Jesus' final journey to Calvary through praying the Stations of the Cross.

Our final set of stations were led by Oak and Acorns, at each station we listened, paused and prayed. We then moved to the next station singing a short reflective refrain. We remembered that this was not the end of the story and now look forward to celebrating Holy Week in a Day on the last day of term.

We were excited to receive our Toilet Twinning certificates.

Back in December, our GIFT team led a fundraising pyjama day to twin a toilet in Zambia in order to provide better sanitary and hygiene facilities. We were delighted to raise enough money to twin two toilets.

Willow Class led us in a Prayer for Christian Unity. We welcomed family and friends as well as members of our parish family and other local churches to pray together.

Keystage Two joined together with family, friends and parishioners to celebrate our annual Carol Service at St Paul's Church.

Big Lent Walk

During Lent our whole school community is taking part in CAFOD's Big Lent Walk. We will be raising money to help communities in Bangladesh adapt to the challenge of climate change. We have decided to set ourselves the challenge of walking from England to Bangladesh (virtually) - a distance of around 5000 miles or 8000km. The children will be walking every day in school and families and staff will be adding in their miles from weekend and evening walks.

Follow the link below to watch our progress.

The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD): The Big Lent Walk (enthuse.com)

Ash Wednesday

Fr Kristian and Deacon Michael joined us for our Ash Wednesday liturgy. Ash Wednesday is the first day of the season of Lent and traditionally everyone is marked with a cross of ash on their forehead as a sign of repentance.

Prayer for Christian Unity

Willow class led us in our prayer for Christian Unity. We were pleased to welcome family and friends as well several new visitors to our school representing many different churches in Tiverton.

Epiphany Doorway Blessings

Sycamore class led a whole school prayer to celebrate Epiphany. During the prayer, children from every class created an Epiphany doorway blessing to take back and hang over their classroom door, bringing blessings on everyone who enters the room.