Welcome ... In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Here at St. Vincent’s, creating an atmosphere for spiritual growth is at the centre of all teaching. The children are encouraged to pray, reflect, contemplate and make links with daily life and religion on a daily basis.
Prayer plays an important part in the life of the school. The classroom environments promote prayer and reflection by including a prayer focus with current liturgical icons, artefacts, symbols and prayers. These are used for daily worship. In all classroom environments, ‘stillness’ is encouraged at certain points of the day for communicating with God. Whole school prayers are taught throughout the year groups. Pupils from Nursery to Year Six have the opportunity to live out the traditions of our faith through for example the annual Procession to crown Our Blessed Lady in May, led by the First Holy Communicants and the annual Corpus Christi Procession in June. During this year, our RE ‘ Recruits’ are leading worship through the Benedictine "Lectio Divina" contemplation and the Ignatian "Examen" reflection processes. They also take the lead across the school for our liturgical celebrations. The Saints feast days are marked and the prayer life of the pupils is enhanced in many ways. An example of this is our annual Patronal Feast-day for St. Vincent De Paul, with our whole school Mass in Our Lady of Lourdes Church. We also celebrate the Feast of All Saints through our “House Saints’` and All Souls Day such as praying and remembering those who have died in our school, families, communities and in wars. Our annual Remembrance Service is a prayerful and poignant occasion, which is well attended by parents in the year group leading the reflections.
The whole school spend around 10-15 minutes a day in prayer or worship. This is done through collective worship, assemblies, guided meditations or services led by other classes or teachers. During the year the whole school gathers together as a school family to celebrate Mass. KS2 classes take it in turn to lead Mass in conjunction with the priest.
The school liaises with one of our Parish Priests about the Sacramental programmes. Parents are encouraged to attend the termly class assemblies.
The children are encouraged to pray individually and collectively. There are class and departmental acts of worship. On Holy Days of Obligation, Mass is celebrated either in school or in one of the parishes. There is a programme of liturgical celebrations in school which follows the Church’s year.