CATHOLIC LIFE
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION, CATHOLIC LIFE & COLLECTIVE WORSHIP VIDEO PROSPECTUS
Welcome to St. Stephen's Catholic Primary School, Longbenton video prospectus for: Religious Education, Catholic Life and Collective Worship
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
St. Stephen’s Catholic Primary School wholly believes that Religious Education is the foundation of all our teaching and the entire educational process. The Christian Catholic beliefs and values inspire and unify every aspect of our school life. The Gospel values underpin everything we do here and effectively, are the basis and spiritual influence on our school curriculum.
Our Religious Education curriculum, whilst aligned to the Religious Education Curriculum Directory, is organised so that units of learning are delivered through specific liturgical themes. The school follows the Come and See Catholic Primary Education Programme from Nursery to Year 6.
The following topics are delivered each term:
Term 1: Advent Term
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Domestic Church - Family
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Baptism and Confirmation - Belonging
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Advent & Christmastide - Loving
Term 2: Lent term
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Local Church -Community
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Eucharist - Sharing
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Lent & Eastertide - Giving
Term 3: Pentecost term
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Pentecost - Serving
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Reconciliation - Forgiveness
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Universal Church
In addition to this, pupils have the opportunity to deepen their understanding of other world faiths, through the teaching of Judaism and Islam. We recognise and celebrate the diversity of faith, cultures and traditions in both our school and the wider community. Therefore, pupils are offered the opportunity to deepen their understanding and enrich their experiences of what practising the other world faiths looks like for believers. Key themes which underpin our Religious Education curriculum are understanding, respect and tolerance and love, which are essential values in developing well-rounded, spiritual and respectful individuals.
DIOCESAN INSPECTION REPORT 2023
Everyone at St Stephen's is delighted to be deemed an Outstanding Catholic School.
"The Catholic life and mission of the school are outstanding in every regard; the highest level of pastoral support is offered to all staff, pupils, their families and the wider community. Senior leaders have an inspiring vision of outstanding teaching and learning; they are highly ambitious for the school and are relentless in their drive for the very best outcomes possible."
COLLECTIVE WORSHIP
Collective Worship is placed at the heart of prayer life in school and is integral in our school mission and vision of 'working, playing and praying together.' It provides both staff and pupils the opportunity to deepen their understanding of the core gospel values and develop a greater understanding of how to live out those values.
Each act of worship follows the four fold action of:
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Gathering together (see)
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Hearing God’s Word (hear)
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Responding to the Word (think)
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Being sent forward with a Mission based on the worship we have participated in. (Do)
In each act of collective worship, we aim to incorporate a wide variety of resources and creativity. Staff support the development of differing styles of worship throughout the school, whilst continue to practise and participate in traditional prayers, too. Pupils are encouraged to participate in the planning and delivery of Collective Worship through our end of unit class liturgical prayer, pastoral care groups and whole school services too.
Our worship takes many different forms and we gather in a variety of groupings:
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We gather together as a school community for whole school collective worship on a Monday, led by Mr Fallon/Mrs Long or KS2 classes on a rotation. The focus of this is on this week’s Gospel. This act of worship gives a clear message and enables pupils to understand their ‘mission’ for the week ahead.
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Every Thursday we come together to participate in hymn practice led by Mrs Long. During this session, the children explore new and traditional hymns, exploring the lyrics and the meaning of the selected hymn choices.
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Every other Friday, we come together to celebrate our achievements and successes in Awards Assembly. Prayer and song forms the basis of the this assembly and pupils achievements are shared and celebrated. Included in this is a mission and vision certificate where a child in each year group is recognised for living out the St. Stephen’s Way.
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Every other Thursday, child led Pastoral Care services take place in class. Groups of children take it in turns to plan and deliver the prayer service. Children take great pride in setting the service up, choosing the various elements of the service and lead the services with a great level of respect.
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In addition to these opportunities to worship, Mass is celebrated each half-term, both in school and at church. All classes attend and we enjoy being together to celebrate with our Parish Priest, Fr. Sean Hall.
For more information regarding Prayer and Liturgy, please follow the link to our Prayer, Liturgy and Meditation policy.
ST STEPHEN'S SANCTUARY
We are delighted to announce that our prayer garden, The St. Stephen's Sanctuary, is now officially open! It has been a busy few weeks getting it to this point but I'm sure you can agree, that our special volunteers have done such a wonderful job! The school garden was in need of some care and attention and our special helpers gave it that...and more!
Our vision for the St. Stephen's Sanctuary was quite simple: a quiet, reflective and calming space where pupils, staff and members of our parish community can spend a moment in quiet prayer with God. Essentially, we hoped to develop something permanent, which could be used regularly and cherished by all, including the birds and mini beasts! Our Little Potting Club have already made an excellent start on maintaining the garden and have taken great pride in watering the plants and ensuring that the bird feeders are topped up so that our garden can continue to blossom.
To help celebrate the opening of the garden, Fr. Sean celebrated a short service with the whole school, followed by a blessing ceremony.
We are so proud of this area of the school grounds and our Agents for Change, along with our gardening club, will do their absolute best to maintain and care for this special area of our school.
SCHOOL CHOIR
St. Stephen's School is proud to introduce to you the School Choir. Mrs Long was bowled over by the response, enthusiasm and love of singing and performing when she suggested taking on responsibility for the choir. Therefore, she could not resist the opportunity to put singing and hymn practice firmly back on our weekly calendar where it belongs!
Each Thursday, the children gather in the teaching hub and learn new hymns and prepare for special masses, liturgical prayer services and also fundraisers too. It has been noted on several occasions how the talent of the children blows our audience members away. Their ability to sing with confidence, pride and their ability to convey beautiful messages through song is mightily impressive.
The children have demonstrated a commitment to their club, a willingness to give things a go and also absolute determination too! Singing a wide range of both old and new hymns, challenging taize chants and responses, is not always easy. The choir work extremely hard and always give 100% effort.
Our choir is made up of 35 KS2 pupils and we are always on the look out for more talent. Choir rehearsals are on Tuesdays, at 12pm. We’d love to see more of the children their singing their hearts out!
OUR FAITH IN ACTION
In June 2023, we are going to launch the Cafod Live Simply Award for Schools in partnership with St. Aidan’s RC Church. In order to launch our work, we linked our mission and application with Laudato Si week, which we celebrated last week.
Working with Mrs Long are the school’s Agents for Change council, who have worked extremely hard over the past weeks to decide on appropriate actions and projects moving forward. The children are currently putting together a presentation for governors and staff which will then be submitted to the Live Simply committee.
Within our weekly collective worship and pastoral care sessions, we have discussed our contributions to ‘Living Simply’:
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Prayed for those in the local and global community including: Ukraine, Turkey – Syria, our local community and began to pray for creation through exploring the Laudato Si.
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During Lent, we celebrated a weekly prayer service, Prayer, Song & Soup, led by pupils in KS2. We also supported CAFOD lenten appeal through out Lenten Soup Kitchen.
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We developed the school prayer garden with the help of local volunteers where we created a dedicated prayer space for the school community to enjoy. The pupils now have an area which they can maintain and care for.
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Work is underway to develop Planted-up the local ward planters with our local councillors and Eco-Council.
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We offered food donations to the local food banks as part of our Harvest appeal.
We look forward to updating you on our progress over the coming weeks.
BIBLE STORIES
Each month, we welcome Mr Taylor comes into school to deliver a Bible Story. The purpose of his visits is to demonstrate the power of storytelling through his felt depictions of the people of the Bible.
Mr Taylor recounts a passage from the Old or New Testaments and then asks us to remember a ‘memory verse’ at the end of the session. He then sets us the challenge of recalling the memory verse, which we aim to put into action. Pupils then have the opportunity to share, with their peers and staff, how they have gone forth in their mission to live out the key message.
HOME-SCHOOL PRAYER JOURNAL
Each class from Reception to Year 6 has been given a home-school class prayer journal. Each pupil will be given the opportunity to take it in turns to write a prayer in the book, at home, and return it to school the following day. The book will follow the class throughout their time in school.
'Inside this little book of prayer,
Our thoughts to God we give,
And turn to him in times of need
To show us how to live.
Two minutes of your time to spare,
Is all St. Stephen asks,
To come up with a heartfelt prayer,
As one of your little tasks'.
Each class teacher has a set of four prayers which are said throughout the course of the day. It is important to realise that these prayers do not ‘punctuate’ the day, but are there to provide opportunities of reflection and a ‘pause for thought’.
The morning collective worship time together (after the register) is often a time where pupils may ask the class to pray for their intention and a time where they can share the class prayer book together.
