Catholic life

Trusting in God; Creating Tomorrow; Helping Today

In everything we do at St Joseph’s we live out our Mission Statement. All children, staff and stakeholders truly trust in God so that we can create a better tomorrow for everyone we meet by following Jesus’ example to help others today.

The Catholic Life of the school is integral to what we do at St Joseph’s and runs through all aspects of school life. We have a welcoming, caring community built on Christian values, where all members, adults and children are valued and encouraged to achieve their potential as children of God. The Catholic Identity and ethos is explicit through the learning environment, chaplaincy provision and community cohesion.

At St Joseph’s our calendar reflects the Liturgical Year of the church ensuring well planned celebrations and reflections to help children understand the various times in the year.

Our children show a deep understanding of the church’s year and how they can recognsie signs of this in Mass, worship, sacraments, celebrations and actions of believers.

Catholic Life And Mission Policy

CAFOD Club

Our CAFOD club will be working hard this year to raise money for CAFOD and teach people about the fantastic work the charity do. We have regular visits from Ann from CAFOD to lead assemblies and workshops with us.

 

Bishop Patrick’s letter to children

Pastoral Letter Pupils 2nd November 2021

Crowning Mary

Thank you to our chaplaincy team and Sr Susan who led us in a beautiful service in which we crowned Mary today. The weather was fantastic so we were able to begin our service on the field and process into the hall for our service.

Our Lenten Journey

As part of our preparations during this Holy season, the Chaplaincy Team have thought of daily reflections and acts. These acts, which the whole school will participate in, range from acts of sorrow, repentance and fasting. Each school day during Lent every child will try to include this act in their lives so that they can turn away from sin and distraction as they grow closer to Jesus.

Big Lent Walk

This Lent, we have taken part in CAFOD’s Big Lent Walk. This has allowed us to think of those who are less fortunate than ourselves as we take time out of our day each week to walk. In addition, we are raising money to support CAFODs work.

Lent A Hand

This Lent, we are considering Almsgiving and how we can give up our time to help others. As part of this, each class have chosen a way to help someone by giving up their own time. The children have read to younger children, picked litter in the local area, made Mothers’ Day Card for the local residential home and the parish and many more fantastic things!

Religious Life

Here at St. Joseph’s liturgy is the dynamic heart of the school. It reinforces the Catholic ethos of the school and its importance is obvious to the whole community. It is crucial to ensure that as many people as possible are involved in liturgies so that worshipping God is a truly communal activity.

As a Catholic school we have a duty to ensure that students have the opportunity to take part in Mass on Holy Days of Obligation, to celebrate important events in the life of the school and to give students the opportunity to take part in liturgies which celebrate important aspects of the Church Calendar and which help to promote the school’s Catholic identity, for instance Advent Services, Ash Wednesday Services, Penitential Services, Holy Week Liturgies, Class Masses and class collective worship.

Students are enabled to engage actively in worship and sharing the Word of God. This reinforces the importance and relevance of these within their own lives and gives them the chance to serve and minister to their peers and to staff as well. Children are also encouraged to use their gifts and talents to help the whole community of St. Joseph’s to access liturgy through different media e.g. music, dance, art, drama, ICT and so on – we all learn in a variety of ways and so need to experience liturgy being presented to us in different ways. This is evident within our Come and See assemblies and Masses.

Our Parish Priest, Cannon John Kyne, visits the children in school  to celebrate Mass.

Our teaching at St. Joseph’s is truly rooted within the teaching of Christ. Our religious life stretches far beyond the RE curriculum and is an integral part of daily life within school. This enables the children to develop a deep faith, respect and love of one another and helps them to understand the world around them. Follow the links below to learn more about the ways in which we celebrate our faith.

Other Faiths

Our school respects and learns about other faiths, with a focus in the Advent Term on Judaism. During the Pentecost Term, children learn about one other world religion each year, as outlined in the Come and See RE curriculum. We are lucky enough to be able to provide our children with visits to local places of worship to learn about the customs and traditions of other faiths, as well as inviting guests into school to talk about their religion in our Religious Roadshow.