As a Catholic primary school, collective worship plays a fundamental part of daily school life and enables us all to join together as one in prayer and worship.
Growing Closer to God
In its simplest form, prayer is defined as “talking to God.” It is a personal time of opening our hearts to our Heavenly Father and bringing everything in our hearts to Him. Through the Apostle Paul, God asked us to pray. Prayer can be a powerful force for change in our lives, and the importance of doing it on a daily basis should be instilled in our children.
Communication is the foundation for success in any relationship. When we communicate openly and freely with each other, we learn to know each other as individuals. This principle also applies to our relationship with God. By talking to God, we can learn more about who He is and what plan He has for us.
Collective Worship aims to provide our children with the opportunity to:
– Develop an awareness and understanding of the presence of God, encouraging a personal response to that presence.
– Reflect on the values of the Gospels and allowing them to develop their conscience and make sound moral judgements based on commitment to following Christ.
-Deepen their faith and foster attitudes of care and respect for each other, developing a community spirit, a common ethos and shared values.
-Live, experience and understand the Liturgical life of the Church through the Liturgical Year together with Solemnities and Feast days of Reconciliation and Holy Communion.
-Foster school-parish links to ensure that they remain exposed and committed to the Catholic faith, experiencing liturgy and worship beyond the school curriculum
-Participate and respond to liturgy and worship, as well as plan their own personal contributions to Collective Worship appropriate to their age and maturity.
Understanding the Liturgical Calendar
We ensure that children are aware of the Liturgical Calendar and of key events in the Church. The symbolism of colour is made clear from the earliest days in school; purple for penance (seen during Advent and Lent), red for Holy Spirit (seen at Pentecost), white and gold for important feasts, green for the ordinary times of the year and blue, which is associated with Mary.
Some months of the year also have a special focus: October is the month of the Rosary, November is the month when the Holy Souls (the deceased) are prayed for, May is the month when Mary is especially remembered and June is the month of the Sacred Heart when we show gratitude for the mercy and great love of Jesus.
Formal and Traditional Prayer
Collective worship takes place in school daily; staff and children are encouraged to pray with thoughtfulness and with respect through a variety of prayer experiences – whole school Masses and Celebrations of the Word, assemblies and prayer sessions together with formal classroom and individual reflective prayer. This worship will follow the liturgical year and include appropriate feast days, it will also encompass Gospel Virtues, British Values, world events and world faiths to enable to appreciate their place in society and respect those around them.
At St Aloysius, we aim to help children value and respect the power of prayer Children are encouraged to develop their individual prayer life through daily participation in our formal prayers; our children pray together at least three times a day: at the beginning of the day, before lunch and at the end of the school day
It is also important that we enable children to participate in our community of the Church through learning our traditional Church prayers, such as The Sign of the Cross, the Lord’s Prayer, Hail Mary and Glory Be (Trinity Prayer). In the months of May and October we have a whole school focus on the Rosary.
Prayer Journal
Each class has a focus Prayer Journal. These are updated with the different types of prayers said by the children and staff within the class. These can help support the faith and sacramental development of our children.
Prayer Focus Area/Prayer Room
Each classroom has a prayer focus area which supports children in their prayer life and is used in acts of class worship. It has reminders of liturgical themes and colours as well as traditional prayers and the RE curriculum foci. Children are encouraged to write prayers to add to the prayer focus area.
There is also a Prayer Room, upstairs in the junior school for children to use outside of curriculum time. This area gives children the opportunity to spend time in private prayer. The prayer room is room is used by our prayer leaders who work with staff to support the children through intentions/prayer box so that family situations, illness, thanksgiving and individual concerns can be expressed and supported.
Mass and Liturgy
In school, Mass and Celebrations of the Word allow us to come together as a community to celebrate key events within the Church’s liturgical year.
Throughout the year we have the joy of celebrating the Sacrament of the Eucharist in Mass. The Masses are led by our parish priest, Father Simon. Our children play an active part in each Mass, through reading, praying, singing and taking part in entrance and offertory processions.
Our children also attend Mass with the parishioners of the local parish church one morning every half-term in order to support their journey of faith as members of our wider Church Community.
To further strengthen links with local parish, families are invited to participate in Sacramental Masses at the parish church at 11 am Sunday Mass, particularly during the weeks of Advent and Lent
In every school term, there are many special liturgies to mark important events and feast days in the Church’s liturgical year.
Each week the school gathers together for a liturgy linked to Sunday’s Gospel Reading. These are led by the Executive Headteacher and Senior Leadership Team. The liturgies follow a format which is familiar to the children with music, scripture, prayer and hymns. Each act of worship follows the four-fold action of Gathering, Hearing God’s Word, Responding to the Word and Being Sent Forward with a Mission to live out God’s Word. .
As a school, we actively seek opportunities for our parents/carers to join us in celebration through whole school Mass, Liturgy and class assemblies.
Assemblies
Each Monday morning, we gather together as a whole school for a Celebration of the Word. During this gathering we celebrate the achievements and success of our children’s God-given talents supported by the help of our Pupil Prayer Leaders. During this assembly, children are also celebrated for positive attitudes and behaviour for learning and ‘real life’ examples of how our school values have been ‘lived’ by our children are shared.Children are presented with Headteachers awards as well as Care and Concern awards.
Class assemblies are also used as a way of reflecting on important Church and RE curriculum themes, which children are actively involved in the selection of readings, the writing of prayers and leading collective worship.
Praise and Worship
Music is central part of praise and worship within our school and hymns are used in all areas of worship from supporting themes within Masses, liturgies and assemblies, to providing atmosphere and celebration in Gospel acclamations and reflective music in mission contemplation and meditation.
The children participate in weekly hymn practices, where they learn Mass responses and sing both traditional and modern hymns, linked to both the liturgical calendar and RE topics within the ‘Come and See’ syllabus.
