RE News
Summer Pilgrimage Challenge
A big thank you to everyone who completed the OLOR Summer Pilgrimage Challenge, the work that the children brought in has been put on display in classrooms and the main corridor. A special celebration assembly will take place in November to recognise all those who took part.
Masses
Father Oliver came in to celebrate Mass with staff and pupils to mark the beginning of the school year and also our School feast day. The children's behaviour and singing were impeccable and we were very proud of them. Thank you to all those who read, sang, served and took up the offertory.
October, Month of the Holy Rosary
During October, we have arranged for classes in Year 2 and KS2 to go on pilgrimage to pray the Rosary and celebrate Mass with the parishioners of Our Lady of the Rosary Parish. It is a lovely opportunity to bring our school and parish together to pray together in this special month of the Church's year.
Faith Council
The newly elected Faith Council members launched our annual appeal to support The Bexley Foodbank at the beginning of the term. They created posters to publicise the appeal and will be visiting the foodbank at the end of this month to find out how the donations they collected get distributed to local families in need. Thank you to everyone who has sent in food and toiletries to support the appeal so far. The final date to bring donations in is Wednesday 18th October.
The children have been leading prayers in class and are looking forward to working together throughout the rest of the year. They already have lots of ideas about how we can put Catholic Social Teaching into action by looking after our world and helping others.
Harvest
Special acts of worship took place in KS1 and KS2 to thank God for the harvest.
Our harvest display in the main corridor is also the collection point for donations for the Faith Council's Bexley Food Bank appeal.
Selling Poppies
CARJ – Catholic Association for Racial Justice
On Friday 3rd November Nicole-Rachelle Moore from the CARJ organisation came into school to talk to our children about the importance of diversity and inclusion within our Catholic Community. Nicole-Rochelle spoke to our Key Stage 1 children about a special bookshop called New Beacon Books in Finsbury Park, north London. Nicole- Rochelle read the children a story, which depicted the real life journey of the owner. In Key Stage 2, the children listened to a non-fiction text called ‘Amazing Africa’ where the children explored the continent of Africa through detailed pictures, interesting facts and engaging quizzes.
It was a pleasure to have Nicole – Rochelle visit our school and we hope to build further links with the CARJ organisation.
Child led worship – Anti Bullying
The Faith council were tasked with creating an Act of Worship centred on the theme of Anti-Bullying. They met as a group to discuss the key themes that would need to be included in the Act of Worship and delegated the roles to each member to go away and research. The children looked at which hymn they would sing, hymn they would choose and which elements of Catholic Social teaching would apply to the theme. The children went away to research their part of the Act of Worship and used their lunchtimes to create their own PowerPoint slide. Once the work was ready, they culminated it into a slideshow and decided which order would work best and who would read aloud. The children talked to the school about the Anti-Bullying theme of ‘Make a Noise about Bullying’ .They introduced odd socks day to the school as something they could do to highlight how we are all different and special. The children organised the music coming into the hall and chose the liturgical cloth and statues for the focal area. They delivered their Act of Worship to Key Stage 1 and 2.
Meet Father Oliver
On Friday 17th November, Father Oliver came into school to visit the children and talk to them about his role as a priest. Each class had an allocated slot in the school Chapel where they could meet Father and ask him some questions. The children loved finding out more about his ordination. Harry in Year 4 said ‘We found out that Father Oliver went to a special school where he trained to be a priest and he told us about how every day at his window he would be practising his prayers and actions for the Mass’ Beatrice said ‘ I was interested to find out that he needs to live alone so that he can serve his Parish and be devoted to God’. We look forward to welcoming Father back into school in our preparation for the coming of Advent.
CAFOD
Maureen from CAFOD came into to talk to the children in Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 about their work overseas. As a school, we regularly fundraise for CAFOD through our charity work and the children found out about their Harvest theme ‘Brighten Up’. Around the world, one in three people have gone hungry in the last year. CAFOD aim to help our neighbours this Harvest, to brighten up the world by fundraising for our global family. The children learnt about the health care vans in Pakistan, which had been brightened up by the local community and were decoratively painted on the outside. The mobile vans were equipped with medical resources and medicines to travel around and help those who were in need of medical treatment. Maureen also talked to the children about the different aspects of Catholic Social teaching and the characters that represent each strand.
CRIBS - RE Enrichment session for all year groups throughout the year
Social Media