Prayer and Liturgy

St Gerard’s Catholic Primary School

At the heart of Christian faith is the belief in God, who communicates with people. God calls every human person into a loving relationship and as with every relationship; our relationship with God can only grow through communication. Prayer is the way in which we engage in communication with God.

Our Prayer Life is central to everything do.
Our prayer life is evident through the wealth of shared prayer and liturgy.
It is present, though not as openly evident, in our private prayer, meditation and reflection.

Please help your child to learn these prayers which we regularly say in school. It would be wonderful if as a family you could pray some of these at home, particularly on a weekend and during school holidays.

We also incorporate traditional prayers into our reflections and collective worships, such as: The Our Father, The Hail Mary and The Glory Be.

These prayers are also said at key points in the liturgical year. For example, during the months of May and October, we encourage everyone to pray the Holy Rosary more often.

As a school we take part in a wealth of liturgies, covering aspects of the liturgical year and key events linked to RSE and PSHE

As part of our school Collective Worship- we use the Ten Ten Collective Worship scheme. Parents can log onto the Collective Worship Portal using the following details.

Username

Password

Parent Portal

https://www.tentenresources.co.uk/parent-portal/

Welcome Mass

We begin the academic year with a very special welcome mass, which is held in St Mary’s Cathedral. As a school and parish community, we gather together to welcome new pupils and staff to St Gerard’s and to pray for a wonderful year ahead.

We present certificates to all new starters so that they know how special they are and that they are part of St Gerard’s School family.

Members of our Chaplaincy and Mini Vinnies pupil voice groups are also presented with their special certificates and badges. This year, Fr Steven kindly celebrated the mass with us and gave out all of our special certificates. Fr Steven supports school fully, throughout the year, and the children love praying, working and spending time with him.

✝️St Gerard’s Feast Day✝️

The 16th October, marks the Feast Day of St Gerard of Majella.

The whole school enjoyed a day of celebration. Our Chaplaincy group led us beautifully in a special liturgy this- morning- where we all reflected on the life of St Gerard and the good that he did. We prayed that St Gerard would continue to support and guide us in all that we do.

All children and staff take part in daily collective worship, where they prayer together as either a whole school, key stage or class. This prayer and liturgy mainly takes place in school. However, as a school we make frequent visits to St Mary’s Cathedral , where we take part in parish prayer and liturgy.

Prayer and Liturgy also takes place on a lunch time. Members of the Chaplaincy group organise, plan and deliver these. Children are invited to drop into these worships/liturgies whenever they want. This year the Chaplaincy group have also helped run the CAFOD club, they have linked this to some lunchtime collective worship.

Th Chaplaincy group invite other pupils to pray, some intentions/themes this year have been: the Holy Rosary in October and May, prayers for all those who have died in November, prayers around the crib in December and the Stations of the Cross in March/April.

Fr Steven supports our lunch time prayer group, spending time and guiding the children in prayer.

The Year 5 and Year 6 pupils enjoyed taking part in the ‘Music for the Mind’ concert in St Mary’s Cathedral. They were a credit to the school. They sang beautifully and many parishioners commented on the respect and enthusiasm they showed.