Advent

This Advent we chose to support the Salvation Army’s Christmas Present Appeal again. The school collected gifts for children and young people in our local area who would otherwise receive little or nothing this Christmas. We had lots of donations which means there will be many happy children this Christmas. The Salvation Army were overjoyed with all the donations and it was hard to fit them all in the car!

“When you forget yourself and think of others, this is love!”

- Pope Francis, 2016

We celebrated Christmas Jumper day on the 8th December. Everyone came in wearing Christmas jumpers and donated money. The Chaplains and friends were out in the morning shaking their buckets and singing Christmas songs!

We raised £272.25!

Our school chaplains and lots of children in the school took part in creating Christmas cards for staff and residents for our local care home. This hopefully brought joy to others who may find Christmas a difficult time of year.

This year the whole school decided to focus on candles as they remind us that Jesus is the light of the World. The chaplaincy team led us in weekly, reflective whole school assemblies focusing on this theme as they asked everyone to think about how they could help others and share the light of Jesus. They also introduced Advent Angels, where the children picked out names randomly in their class and took their peers under their wings. They had to look out for them, check in with them and give them positive messages through the month of December.

In the Chapel a Nativity crib had been set up. Each child were given candles to write down ways they could share the light of Jesus. Lots of the children reflected back on their discussions on Fratelli Tutti and COP26. Classes took it in turns to have a blessing of the crib. This gave them the chance to listen and reflect on a story which is about caring for others, celebrating diversity and understanding our shared humanity.

At the end of the blessing, everyone was given the opportunity to lay their candle with their message by the crib with Jesus.

'Putting Christ back into Christmas'

This year, the Chaplains came up with a whole school competition. The Chaplains asked the school to think about the true meaning of Christmas and reminded us that it is not all about the parties, food and presents. The challenge was to create something to represent the true meaning of Christmas. There were so many wonderful creations! Come and have a look!