At St Mary’s we always strive to provide quality experiences of prayer and liturgy that support pupils’ spiritual development. These communal acts of prayer and the liturgical celebrations of the Church form part of everyday life in our school. Every child is given the opportunity to pray by giving praise and thanks to God using traditional prayers of the Catholic Church and many other sources of prayer that enable this to take place. We encourage the children to nurture a relationship with God through words, symbols, song, gestures and silence. Prayer is such an integral part of school life that it can never be confined to ‘timetabled’ slots but may take place in a variety of contexts other than those specifically structured.

Central to our prayer life is the daily act of Collective Worship. This takes a variety of forms including: whole school collective worship (Using Ten:Ten worship programme) focusing on the week’s Gospel message, class assemblies and a  whole school hymn practice. In addition we celebrate Mass both at our local church each half term and on Feast days. 

Other opportunities for prayer take place within the classroom at the start of each day, before and after lunch and again at the end of each day. Prayer in the classrooms and in assemblies always includes use of symbols and a focal point for prayer which is appropriate to the liturgical season, for example, Lent, Advent or Easter.  During all these times of prayer, both staff and pupils are involved in leading and participating.

The school is very blessed in having a school Chaplain - Fr Jose, who is in school regularly helping our children to experience what it means to belong to, or take part in the worshipping community of the Church. The children are fortunate to be able to experience the richness of the liturgical life of the church in many ways throughout the year such as: the Stations of the Cross during Lent, the celebration of the sacrament of Reconciliation, Our Lady’s procession in May to name but a few.

It is thus our aim to provide our children with opportunities to experience a variety of forms of prayer that help each individual in the school community to foster their own relationship with God.