Catholic Life
Welcome to our school’s Catholic Life page.
Advent
Happy New Year! As we enter Advent, we begin the new Church year as we prepare for the coming of Christ at Christmas. We will be preparing through prayer, reconciliation and learning about how we can observe this very special season.
Remembrance Day
We remember those who have died in the month of November and especially prayed for those who died in war. The children from across school made poppies to help them reflect on the sacrifices made by so many so that we may have our freedom today.
Children Raise £2000 through CAFOD Sponsored Walk
Congratulations to all who took part and raised money for CAFOD this year through our sponsored walk. This is an amazing amount of money which will go towards providing people with clean water which is even more essential for cleaning and washing at this time.
Welcome to the New School Year at St Thomas More
Welcome back to St Thomas More in this year where many things have changed in school but also many things remain the same. We are all adjusting to the ‘new normal’ and our Catholic Life is too.
We celebrated our first ‘whole school Mass’ on Monday. St Theresa’s class led our mass and it was live streamed to the whole school on our interactive whiteboards. It was great to celebrate Mass together as a whole school again, even if we weren’t all able to be physically present.
St Thomas More Feast Day Mass
Please use these prayers during this time of anxiety and uncertainty from the Catholic Bishops Conference England and Wales, please click on the sentence below:
Prayers during the Coronavirus pandemic
Wednesday Word
Our school subscription to this fantastic resource has now moved online for the time during lockdown. Please have a look at the RE activities with your children.
Weekly Worship
Please see the link below to find this week’s worship video and prayer activities to do with your family.
Father Hudson’s Fundraising Assembly
We were very lucky to have Lucy from Father Hudson’s come and visit us in assembly on Thursday. She told us all the story of Hasani, a pharmacist from Syria, who came to our country as a refugee. Through the help of the Brushstrokes charity, which Fr Hudson’s supports, he learnt English and is now working as a pharmacist in the UK and is leading a much happier life now. We raise money every Lent for Fr Hudson’s by giving what we can in the small cardboard boxes which the children are taking home this week. Last year we raised £302, let’s see if we can beat it this year!
Lent – 500 good deeds
We began Lent this year with Ash Wednesday mass being led by St John Bosco Class. They did a fantastic job of reading and singing ‘Our God’ after communion. We will now be reflecting as classes how we can come closer to God in this important season of the Church’s year as we prepare for Easter. Children will be encouraged to live out the Gospel message as we aim to do 500 deeds all together as a school. These good deeds will be moments of extra special effort to help someone else this Lent. They will be written up on the house team banners in hall.
The Year of the Word
We have officially begun the Year of the Word as a school. We will be making a special effort to read the Bible more regularly in class and reflect upon the readings in the Gospel of Matthew this year. The three themes for the year are: Celebrating, Living and Sharing. A group of Year Fours have now been trained as Bible Leaders and will be leading prayer services and bible reading groups for other children in the school.
First Holy Communion – Belonging
We had our first session together on Tuesday night where we looked at the idea of belonging. We discussed the different groups and places that we belong to and how we all fit together into the Body of Christ. Afterwards, we made votive candles to represent the light that each of us brings to our church community.
St Martin de Porres Feast Day 3rd November 2019
On Tuesday 5th November, St Martin de Porres class celebrated their class feast day. They found out some information about St Martin de Porres and then enjoyed biscuits, squash and a bit of a dance to celebrate.
Here is some of the work they produced.
CAFOD Harvest Fair and Food bank Collection
Many thanks to Year 4 who organised and led this year’s CAFOD Fair. It was a brilliant success and raised over £500 for CAFOD’s ‘Brighten Up’ Harvest Appeal. Well done to everyone involved! Also, another big thank you to everyone who donated so generously to the Trussell Trust food bank as part of our Harvest appeal. The donations were warmly received and have now been collected by volunteers from the food bank.
Whole School Rosary with Archbishop Bernard Longley
The whole school joined the Archbishop and schools from across the Diocese in praying the rosary together on Wednesday 9th October. It was a lovely prayerful event with songs and readings and the children were excited to have the Archbishop with us in the hall via a live stream from St Chad’s Cathedral.
St Francis of Assisi Feast Day
Today, 4th October is the feast day of St Francis of Assisi. The children in Miss Spittle’s class were learning about him as he is their Class Saint. The children watched video clips, acted out the story and drew pictures. Please click on the link below to see the picture of St Francis that Maya drew:
Canonisation of Blessed John Henry Newman
Children across the Diocese of Birmingham have been asked to pray for Blessed John Henry Newman in preparation for his canonisation on Sunday 13th October 2019. In school each class will be saying a prayer and a decade of the Rosary each day. If you wish to pray with your child at home, we have attached (see below) the prayers for each day starting from Friday, 4th October.
Class Saint celebration
St Teresa’s Class celebrated the feast day of St Teresa on the 5th September by having a class party. We also learnt all about St Teresa’s life and how she dedicated her life to God and helping others.
Good Shepherd Mass of Thanksgiving
Thank you to everyone who donated to the Good Shepherd appeal for Father Hudson’s Care. Your donations were delivered by three children from Year 4 to the Good Shepherd Mass at St George’s Church, Worcester and were received by the Archbishop of Birmingham, Bernard Longley as part of the offertory. It was a fantastic opportunity for children from schools from across Worcestershire and Warwickshire to gather together and celebrate Mass for this very special occasion.
June – the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
In our assemblies and prayer times this month we are reflecting on the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Especially, we are thinking about the compassion and kindness of His heart and how we can live out those values in our lives too.
First Reconciliation
Congratulations to those children who made their first confessions last night at Our Lady of Mount Carmel. It was a lovely, reflective service in which the children were invited to think about what they were sorry for and the things that they might want to improve at in their lives. Many thanks to Fr Tony, Fr Jason and Fr Cornelius for hearing their confessions and making this a very special day for all involved.
Adoration and Benediction
Yesterday, Father Tony came into to school for an Adoration and Benediction Service with KS2. Year 4 learnt all about the different artefacts used and the meanings behind them as part of their RE curriculum and then the whole of KS2 took part in a service of praise, worship, adoration and Benediction. The children really enjoyed and appreciated this opportunity to spend this quiet, prayerful time in the presence of Jesus.
Rosary Group
Rosary group are thinking particularly about the Joyful mysteries of Jesus’ life as we enter the Month of May and celebrate the Easter season. Rosary group runs on a Friday lunchtime and we hope to see as many of you there as possible next week to help celebrate this joyous season.
Happy Easter and Month of May
Welcome back to school and a Happy Easter to you all. In school, we are entering the month of May, which means we have a special focus on Our Lady. We will be singing Marian hymns and saying Marian prayers such as the Hail Mary and The Memorare as well as having the opportunity to say the Rosary weekly.
On the 13th May, we have our ‘Crowning of Mary’ Mass on the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, this will be led by Y1 children in St Faustina class.
We ask and encourage parents and children to bring in flowers throughout the month of May to place around the statue of Mary outside of school.
Many thanks.
Advent and Christmas Season
At school, we are busily preparing for the coming of Jesus at Christmas. The children have begun their work on the season of Advent in RE lessons and have decorated their classrooms with Jesse Trees and Nativity scenes.
As part of the season of Advent, we will be celebrating Masses and services at these times:
Monday 10th December 9:10 am – Advent Mass (Prepared by the Liturgy Group for the whole school)
Monday 17th December 9:10 am – Christmas Mass (Whole School)
Friday 21st December 2 pm – Carols Around the Tree (Whole School)
We warmly invite all parents to join us for these special celebrations at this time of year.
The Liturgy Group will also be preparing an Advent Prayer Service for the final week of term at lunchtime.
God Bless.
Altar Server Training
Many Thanks to Fr Tony for training up this years group of Altar Servers. 11 children joined Fr Tony in the hall after last week’s Mass to be trained in setting up for Mass and how to assist during Mass. A rota will be coming out in the children’s book bags to tell parents which Masses your children will be serving at
Harvest Charity Collections – CAFOD Fayre and Foodbank Collection
Thank you to everyone who gave so generously to our Harvest Collections this year and a big thank you to the children in year 4 who ran such a brilliant and successful CAFOD Fayre. We raised £453.75 for CAFOD – an increase of £121.28 on our previous year’s collection. Another thank you to those who donated much-needed items to the food bank, these were presented in our Harvest Mass, which was led by St Thesera’s class, with Father Tony and have now been delivered to the food bank. Well done to all involved!
Rosary Group – Fridays
As we enter the month of October, we are reminded that it is the month of the Most Holy Rosary. We make a special effort this month to pray a decade of the Rosary at least once a week. It was great to see so many of you praying the Rosary at lunch time today and look forward to seeing you in the courtyard at 12:45 pm on Friday next week.
Adoration with Arch-Bishop Bernard Longley
We were lucky enough to take part in adoration with other schools from across the Diocese. Via a live link, we were able to join the Arch-Bishop for a half an hour Adoration service, which involved singing, prayer and spending some time in quiet contemplation in the Real Presence of Christ. Thanks to Fr Tony who also joined us to lead the service in school.
Prayer Life
This year, we are increasing the number of prayers that children need to know by heart. We will be learning these prayers in school but would encourage you to use them in daily family prayer. After Christmas, we will be asking children to produce designs to reflect the content of each prayer and the winning designs will be displayed in classrooms.
Please see the PowerPoints on this web page to find out which prayers your children are learning this year.
Reception Prayers Year 1 Prayers Year 2 Prayers Year 3 Prayers Year 4 Prayers
We go to say the Rosary on a Friday lunchtime. We say one Our Father and 10 Hail Mary’s. As well as that we think about what season it is (Lent we say the Sorrowful Mysteries, Easter – Glorious Mysteries, Christmas – Joyful Mysteries etc.) Two children from the Liturgy group lead saying the Rosary.
(Christa V)