Prayer & Liturgy
We believe that Christian worship in a Catholic school names and celebrates God’s presence in our lives. It is concerned with giving glory, honour, praise and thanks to God. It is our loving response, in word and action, to God’s invitation to enter in to relationship, made possible through the work of Jesus Christ and the witness of the Holy Spirit.
We support the belief that Prayer and Liturgy takes into account the religious and educational needs of all who share in it:
Those who form part of the worshipping community in church
Those for who school may be their first and only experience of church
Those from other Christian traditions – or none
Those from other faith backgrounds
At St James' Catholic Primary School, prayer is an important part of our daily life. Children will be given lots of opportunities to pray including:
- Prayer at the start of the day
- Daily collective worship (assembly)
- Prayer before meals (at lunchtime)
- Prayer at the end of the day
We start and end each prayer by making the sign of the cross. Whilst not all of our children are baptised Catholic, they are all invited to join in with prayers and collective worship.
The Catholic Education Service and Bishop's Conference have recently launched a new Prayer and Liturgy Directory called 'To love you more dearly' for all catholic schools. If you would like to read this in more detail, please use the link below:
We believe that Prayer and liturgy in our school aims to provide the opportunity for all pupils and staff:
- To contemplate something of the mystery of God
- To reflect on spiritual and moral issues
- To explore their own beliefs
- To respond to and celebrate life
- To experience a sense of belonging and develop community spirit
- To develop a common ethos and shared values
- To enrich religious experience
- To grow in liturgical understanding and development
- To reinforce prayers which are part of the Catholic tradition
- To reinforce positive attitudes
- To participate fully
- To take time out to ‘wonder at’, ‘to come to terms with’ and ‘to give worth to.’
Ten:Ten Collective Worship Programme
Along with other resources, we use a programme called Ten:Ten to support our Prayer and Liturgy in school. This programme provides a whole school celebration of the word, daily prayers to use with the children in the classroom and prayers for the staff to use when they meet together.
The programme also provides a termly Parent Newsletter for you to read.
Highlight the link below and then click on 'Go to tentenresources' to view this month's newsletter.
Here, you will find out more about what this month's assemblies will be about, the Gospel readings the children will be listening to and some questions you might want to explore with your children.
http://www.tentenresources.co.uk/prayers-for-home/parent-newsletter/
