Prayer and Worship
Pupils display a prayerful and reverent attitude to all aspects of collective worship, they enjoy and look forward to it in all forms. Pupils value the opportunity to reflect privately and to share their prayers with others, they understand there are many ways to talk to God. They are taught to pray through traditional prayers, scripture focus and use meditation, silence, reflections and song. They understand the Liturgical year and can talk about traditional activities at each part.
We have pupil-led, whole-school praise assemblies, where the GIFT Team lead weekly collective worships in alignment with the liturgical year. In addition, the GIFT Team lead whole-school Celebrations of the Word for special Feast days, Holy days, Advent and Lent.
Celebration Of The Word
At St Mary’s, we give love and thanks to God every day by offering up our hard work to Him.
Every Friday morning, at the start of our school day, we gather in our classes to take part in a special Celebration Of The Word. This is an opportunity for our whole school community to celebrate the Word of God. We reflect on God’s love and blessings for us. In every year group, all children are given the opportunity to organise and lead worship with confidence.
Our Celebrations Of The Word follow a four part structure of Gather - Listen - Respond - Send and are often centred around the Gospel reading that has been celebrated in Mass the previous Sunday and in Mrs Brown's Praise Assembly on the previous Monday morning. Children may: select and process holy objects for our prayer focus table; choose a gathering hymn to sing at the beginning of the liturgy; write and share their own responsorial, bidding and thanksgiving prayers; write and share reflections in response to the Gospel reading; participate in a sacred silence; or provide a prayer card, picture or song to send out with the class at the end of the liturgy.
Our Celebrations of the Word are prepared and led by our pupils. Celebrations of the Word have a common format and this helps the children with their planning and encourages them to be more independent. Each week, a pupil leads the collective worship for their year group using resources from their class prayer bag. This is planned and practised at home in advance with their family, with a given scripture and theme. The elements of the Celebration of the Word that are pupil-led have a progression in levels of responsibility throughout school, for example nursery pupils are able to build an altar and listen to the scripture, to Year 6 where the pupils can set the altar, select their own readings from scripture and can compose prayers independently.
Parents, Grandparents and friends of our school community may be invited to partake in our Celebrations of the Word, as we come together outdoors in our Chapel in the school grounds, one class at a time, weather permitting.
All pupils undertake ministries willingly and are involved in evaluating the quality of the prayer and worship they have planned. Pupils love to sing, they engage enthusiastically and proudly. They use their talents and share them with others at celebrations, Mass, concerts and events. They share their talents in the community, singing at a variety of places including the local nursing homes.
All classes have their own prayer areas which reflect the liturgical year and all have a statue of St Mary as a focal point. All classes use the outdoor chapel and prayer areas in the school grounds, which parents also enjoy to pray in.
Pupils are encouraged to articulate and reflect on how they will go forth and take action in their daily life, such as showing care and consideration to those around them and those further afield, caring for our common home. British values and protected characteristics are threaded through our curriculum to make relevant connections.