St Paul's Catholic Primary School

Each of our house saint groups have 2 house captains which support the children to learn more about their house saint throughout the year. Our new house captains were voted in by their house and then led an assembly to the rest of the school to introduce themselves on Wednesday 20th September 2023

On Monday 25th September Fr Tom celebrated our start of school year mass. In the Gospel we heard how Jesus called all the children to him, just like he calls us. Each class prepared a reflection on how they are going to become closer to Jesus this year like the children in the Gospel. You can see these below:

Yr 1 – We can be closer to Jesus by helping our friends and always being kind to one another. 

Yr 2 – We want to ask Jesus to help us to be kind to others, to focus on our learning and help keep the world safe. We will follow Jesus’ message from the Bible to help us be close to him and share this with people we meet.

Yr 3 –

Jesus, we need you. Help us to become closer to you. Help us to grow closer to you by opening our minds, our words and our hearts to you. Help us to see you in the beauty around us. Help us to grow closer to you by listening carefully to the words you have spoken and the love you have shown us. Help us to receive love and to give love to others without questions. Help us to follow in your footsteps every day of our lives.

Yr 4 –

Lord Jesus, we ask you for your help. Allow us to experience your presence in the many blessings you put before us. Open our eyes to the new challenges and exciting opportunities we have in our school. Open our hearts and minds to see your presence in our new friends and new teachers. Jesus, inspire us to do our best this year!

Yr 5 – Lord, grant us your aid, Grant us determination when we struggle.

Grant us faith when we face challenges. And grant us love and kindness to share with others. We pray that through this school year you help us to become closer to you in our work and our play. Help us to live our lives as you lived yours.

Yr 6 – 

Lord Jesus, we ask for your eternal blessing. You have come to live within us by your Holy Spirit, and we have become members of your family forever. Please help us to grow stronger in our faith, and to become more and more like you. Allow us to serve you, share in your love, and celebrate your presence in our lives . Help us to realise that you are always with us, especially this year in any challenging times we face as we look on to our journey ahead beyond St Paul’s

Each class also had their new class candle blessed. We light these every day when we pray and as part of our RE lessons.

Our Chaplaincy team also were blessed and given their badges. 

Today we began our Friday Rosary - Morning Prayers and Breakfast led by our Year 6 Chaplaincy Team. 

Thank you to parents that were able to attend this week and share this time for collective worship, prayers and reflection within our School. We will continue to do this throughout the month of October. 

Today we celebrated Harvest by Year 5 leading a whole school assembly with Biblical readings, poems and Harvest songs and sign.

We welcomed a representative from the Broxbourne food bank who thanked everyone at St Paul's School for their generous food donations.

Thank you to all parents and carers that were able to attend and for all your generous donations.  Thank you to our Year 5 children for all your hard work preparing and leading a wonderful assembly and celebration of Harvest! 

St. Paul’s Catholic Nursery and Primary School would like to share with you our up and coming Whole School Diversity Project which is to be focussed upon Pope Francis World Mission Sunday to be marked on Sunday 22nd October 2023. As we lead up to this Mission Sunday we will be focusing on Pope Francis world message as shared below;

The MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS FOR WORLD MISSION DAY 2023 is Hearts on fire, feet on the move (cf. Lk 24:13-35)

Please see the letter and powerpoint for more information

Here at St Paul's we follow rooted in love to support our children's understanding of Catholic Social Teaching. This half term the focus is Care of Creation. Each Friday a child is nominated by their class teacher who has shown this to win the weekly Catholic Social Teaching award.

As the sad events unfold around us in our world that are causing devastation and unrest, we will come together on Thursday 19th October 2023 at 11am in our classrooms and all stop what we are doing and pray. A member of the chaplaincy team will come and lead the prayer with each class. 

As Jesus said in the Bible (Matthew Chapter 18:19-20) '19 “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” Praying is a very powerful tool.

Our Prayer for Peace

God of love,

We pray for peace in our world, and an end to war.

Instead of hatred, let there be love.

Shelter your children and protect us.

Guide us and keep us from harm,

so we can build a world of love and live our lives in peace.

Amen.

On St Luke's Feast Day our house captains lead their house in a special service dedicated to St Luke and then enjoyed a celebration together after

We welcomed Fr Clement to celebrate our All Saints Day Mass with us. During our Mass, our House Captains led our reflections about our 4 house saints linked to the Gospel reading from our Mass. We pray that we can be more like the saints with the help of Jesus' love and guidance

 Fr Clement led our remembrance day service in which we thought about all those who served for our country. Thank you to all the families who contributed to our whole school poppy wreaths with your reflections and prayers. 

The theme this year is - 

'For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.’ (Isaiah 9:5-6) 

Over the coming weeks, the children will be busy designing their Christmas cards in class ready for the competition. We will share the winner from EYFS, KS1 and KS2 here!

Fr Clement joined all our key stage 2 classes this week and led one of their RE lessons. This was very inspiring for us. Thank you Fr Clement. 

Fr Clement led us in our start of Advent Mass and helped us to start preparing during this special time. He blessed our Advent reflection booklets which were given to each child. 

Our school crib has been travelling round our families homes each evening to spend time with different members of our community. It has been lovely to see it being used and for families to be able to have time together for reflection during Advent.

Thank you to our Chaplaincy team who prepared and led a reflective Advent service with the support of Fr Clement for our parish and parent community.

Well done to our year 5 class who won our Nativity competition! Fr Clement and Ms Costanzo were very impressed with all class efforts.

We are delighted to share that Poppy in nursery won the Diocese of Westminster Christmas Card Competition for EYFS phase. Well done to Poppy!

Thank you to our wonderful choir for their carol service for our local community. They all shone with their singing.

Our Chaplaincy Team led our Racial Justice Sunday assembly which helped us to reflect on and recognise that we are all children of God, regardless of our race and background. This year’s theme seeks to promote reflection, discussion and action on our theme and to encourage us to carry this through in the weeks and months after Racial Justice Sunday.

The theme for Racial Justice Sunday is: “Seeing one another in the life of the Church”.

Each class took time to reflect on this through a variety of different activities in class.

Lent

On Wednesday 14th February we marked the start of Lent with our Ash Wednesday services. Fr Clement reminded us that during Lent we open our hearts with love to pray, fast and help others. All children received a Lent purple pin, a Lent booklet and a Lent collection moneybox to support them during the season of Lent and preparation.

During Lent, we encourage the children to wear their Lent purple pin to remind them to keep Jesus in their mind during Lent as we get ready for Holy Week and Easter Sunday. The children can use the Lent booklets as daily reflections to support them during this Holy time in coming closer to Jesus.

This year we are once again taking part in the Catholic Children Society Appeal and we are asking over the next few weeks to collect small change in the Lent boxes to bring in at the end of Lent. The Catholic Children Society Lent appeal is inspired by Pope Francis’s call to ‘make our voices heard’ and find ways to connect and help others in their time of need. Every penny raised by our school will support our work with local disadvantaged children and families within our community. We will be asking children to bring their Lent boxes back in on this day, Friday 22^nd March. Any donations, no matter how much, is most appreciated to go towards the work of the Catholic Children Society.

We were very lucky to have a visit from the Catholic Children Society today who shared their mission, work with us, and how they live out the Gospel values and call for social justice through Catholic Social Teaching and actions.

We will also be supporting the CAFOD Lent appeal following the assembly with CAFOD on Monday 26^th February, more details to follow.

Fr Clement visits us each term to lead our RE learning for us. We are very grateful for his deep faith and understanding that he shares.

As part of the Year of Prayer we will be learning the Our Father in sign language. Please see letter below.

Our Chaplaincy Team alongside Fr Clement led our Lenten reflection service to support our Lent journey alongside serving a soup lunch for our community. 

This Lent children at St Paul’s Catholic School have yet again continued to deepen their knowledge, faith and spiritual journey with Jesus Christ.  Children, staff and parents have gathered collectively for our Ash Wednesday Service, Mass, Reconciliation and a ‘soup and supper’ prayer service.

Holy Week began with a celebratory ‘Palm Sunday’ assembly were children waved palm leaves, shared prayers and sung ‘Hosanna, gathering to reflect upon how we can truly welcome Jesus this Lent and how far we will walk with Him.

Our ‘Stations of the Crosses’ assemblies and Year 3 and Year 4 Easter production enabled us all to reflect upon the passion of Christ’s love and place ourselves at the Holy Cross and at the feet of Jesus.

Charity Lenten walks and generous donations were all ways of our almsgiving along with prayers for all those in need, near and afar.  All of which is a true dedication of our love and commitment this Lent and for this we are very proud to be a part of St Paul’s Catholic School.