Catholic Life

Mission Statement

Christ is at the centre of St. Mary’s as we strive to nurture and care for all our community members by encouraging them to Believe, Succeed and Soar within God’s love, to achieve the very best that they can, in all areas.

Our Vision

We are disciples who put our faith into action in all that we do.

We are role models who encourage others to shine and be the best version of themselves that they can be.

We are investigators who ask questions about the past, the present and the future.

We are artists who show our creativity and talents with flair and imagination.

We are storytellers who have a passion for reading and are able to communicate in many ways.

We are problem solvers who tackle tasks with an open mind and a positive approach.

We are team players who work together to achieve our goals.

We are explorers who learn new skills, embrace other cultures and value our locality and the wider world.

We Believe. We Succeed. We Soar.

Our Gospel Virtues

To achieve our full Christian potential, we all need to live out our Gospel Virtues: –

Love

A Christ-like love respects the talent of each person in our school.

Faith

Faith helps us to do God’s will in this world.

Hope

Hope helps us to see a new life beyond our present one.

Peace

We know that if we love one another, peace will be all around us.

Mercy

We believe that mercy will be shown by the way we forgive others.

Community

We believe our community here unites us all as followers of Jesus.

Bishop Patrick’s Spiritual Themes

In November 2018, Bishop Patrick wrote a letter to be read out at all Masses. In his letter, Bishop Patrick outlined his three-fold vision for the next three years: ENCOUNTER, DISCIPLESHIP and MSSIONARY DISCIPLESHIP.

ENCOUNTER

Bishop Patrick would like to ‘ensure that all people in our parishes, schools, and chaplaincies are helped to discover, or discover more deeply, the importance of a personal ENCOUNTER with Christ; so that they can become convinced that they are each loved by God and are invited to grow in their relationship with him.’

DISCIPLESHIP

With the personal encounter with Christ, Bishop Patrick would like to encourage each of us to hear and respond to his invitation to be his DISCIPLES, to follow him more closely, and to seek to serve him generously in our daily lives. A disciple of Christ is to become like Christ in all that we say and do. Being a disciple means we have to take the time to get to know Jesus through prayer, action, reaction and interaction.

MISSIONARY DISCIPLESHIP

With a greater recognition of, and openness to, the help, guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we can all become MISSIONARY DISCIPLES; faith-filled, joyful and outward-looking Christians who are growing in confidence to speak humbly of the difference that knowing Christ makes to our lives, and who bear witness to His love in our service of our brothers and sisters, especially those most in need. The service to which Christ calls us is always the action of the Holy Spirit working in us.

At St Mary’s, these spiritual themes will become more and more a living reality in school life and the faith journey of our children. Please speak to your children about them and how we are making the Bishop’s vision come alive in our school.

ENCOUNTER: Bishop Patrick would like to ‘ensure that all people in our parishes, schools, and chaplaincies are helped to discover, or discover more deeply, the importance of a personal ENCOUNTER with Christ; so that they can become convinced that they are each loved by God and are invited to grow in their relationship with him.’

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DISCIPLESHIP: With the personal encounter with Christ, Bishop Patrick would like to encourage each of us to hear and respond to his invitation to be his DISCIPLES, to follow him more closely, and to seek to serve him generously in our daily lives. A disciple of Christ is to become like Christ in all that we say and do. Being a disciple means we have to take the time to get to know Jesus through prayer, action, reaction and interaction.

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MISSIONARY DISCIPLESHIP: With a greater recognition of, and openness to, the help, guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we can all become MISSIONARY DISCIPLES; faith-filled, joyful and outward-looking Christians who are growing in confidence to speak humbly of the difference that knowing Christ makes to our lives, and who bear witness to His love in our service of our brothers and sisters, especially those most in need. The service to which Christ calls us is always the action of the Holy Spirit working in us.

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Whole School Display

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The God Who Speaks

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales have designated 2020 as ‘The God Who Speaks’: A Year of the Word to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Verbum Domini – Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Exhortation on ‘The Word of the Lord’, and the 1600th anniversary of death of St Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin.’ In keeping with the Church’s three-year cycle there will also be a specific focus on St Matthew’s Gospel.

The aim of the God Who Speaks – A Year of the Word is ‘Celebrating, Living and Sharing God’s Word.’ It will be an opportunity for us at St Mary’s to develop and explore new ways of responding to the Bible.

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The CMAT schools have produced The Stations of the Cross video liturgy, it can be found here: https://seedsthatgrow.co.uk/stations-of-the-cross-video-liturgy/

Please see the link to the new church website here.

If you would like to attend mass at church you will need to book your attendance beforehand. This can be booked via the above link.

Charity Bake Sale

Some of the children in our school wanted to help raise funds to help families from Ukraine. They organised a bake sale to raise as much money as possible. Parents brought in donations of cakes, biscuits, cookies etc and the children sold them to their peers at break time.

As there were so many donations received, the children were also able to hold a further sale to parents after school. We are awaiting the total of donations raised.