Prayer Intentions
May 2024
May is one of the months that the Catholic Church uses to celebrate Mary and as she is the patron saint of our school, we always do a lot of work to renew our devotion to Mary. Each class altar is adorned with flowers and blue material as well as beautiful sets of Rosary beads, our children participate in various services such as the GIFT Team-led Rosary and Crowning of Mary services, guided meditations, rosaries in the library at breaktime, Rosary packs which are sent home to share with parents, learning the BSL for the Hail Mary. This is a very special time for our children. This year, we will also be fundraising for Cambodia Crafts – a charity that support places in Cambodia affected by landmines – by selling jewellery.
Easter 2024
Upon our return to school, we celebrated Easter by holding a guided meditation, an Easter worship where we brought out the word “Alleluia” from our lent envelopes and did Stations of the Resurrection in classes. As we move through Eastertide, we will also be holding a Pentecost Party on 17th May in school. Look out for pictures on the way!
Lent 2024
Holy Week at St Mary’s is always a very special time. This year, we enjoyed Mass, a Palm Sunday worship, our Manchester Passion-inspired Maundy Thursday service with our GIFT Team tableau of the Last Supper, and our very moving Passion of Our Lord to celebrate Good Friday, acocompanied by Adagio for Strings. We also painted pebbles this year and left them behind for Lent in our new woodland area after carrying the cross on its final journey around our school. Every child walked a mile with the cross before it was placed in our woodland area. Here’s a video of some of the highlights of the week.
Lenten Newsletter
Stations of the Cross
Each year group across school have participated in Stations of the Cross, with varying levels of pupil-leadership, from Y1 to Y6. Our reception children also looked at some of the stations as well.
Leave it behind for Lent
All of our children, from Nursery to Year Six, reflected on scripture and considered what they’d want to leave behind during Lent. They created designs on pebbles and following a worship, they placed them around our new woodland area.
Ash Wednesday
We started Lent off in an edific way by going to Mass and receiving ashes alongside the parish community.
Taize Lunchtime Worship
Our KS2 children are invited to some quiet reflective time on Wednesday lunchtimes during Lent to participate in a Taize worship. The Year Sixes in particular have said how wonderful it is to have some time to be alone with God.
CAFOD’s Big Lent Walk
Our school have embarked on a challenge to walk 200km during Lent this year to raise awareness for CAFOD. We have also had book sales and cake sales to raise money for this very important charity. We have raised over £200 this year for CAFOD.