Welcome to our Academy! We are proud to be members of this year’s Chaplaincy Team. We want to make a big difference to the spiritual lives of all of the children in our Academy. We feel that it is important that we lead by example and want to work hard to fulfill our Chaplaincy Charter:
To be respectful of one another.
To always share with other people.
To try to follow the footsteps of Jesus.
To hope for each other.
To not be too scared to share our ideas with others; have courage.
To always have a go and don’t give up; perseverance.
To always try to take part in everything; a team player.
To always try to be saintly as a Good Samaritan.
To “love one another as I have loved you”.
We are excited to work with you and all of the children in our Academy. We have chosen to live Jesus’s words: “you are a rock, and on this rock foundation I will build my church.”
In addition to our own Chaplaincy Team, we are also privileged to be able to use the resources and support of our Trust Chaplaincy Team:
Mini Vinnies are a part of the St Vincent de Paul Society England and Wales (SVP), a voluntary organisation, who work across the country to tackle poverty in all forms. They are dedicated to making a difference through practical action. Mini Vinnies are the youngest group of the SVP (aged 7-11), but that doesn’t mean they can’t make the biggest difference. Mini Vinnies are not ordinary children. Through the simple formula of ‘see, think, do’, they learn to spot people in need and discover how they can best help them.They go the extra mile and meet during their lunchtimes to pray and talk about how they can help others in need, but most importantly they act!
Fr Andrew, with the support of year 6, led KS2 in a liturgy for the distribution of ashes. We reflected on things we want to say sorry for, and receive ash on the crown of our heads as a demonstration that we want to try and do better. During Lent, we focus on fasting (giving things up), almsgiving (doing something extra) and forgiveness (saying sorry for what we have done wrong and forgiving people who have hurt us.
The Mini Vinnies led KS2 in a liturgical prayer on Reconciliation and the parable of the unforgiving servant. They thought about forgiveness and reflected on anything they needed to say sorry for with an examination of conscience. After this, each class was invited to spend some time in the Chapel in Adoration. This is a time when Catholics believe the real presences of Jesus is with us in the Blessed Sacrament (bread which has been transformed by a priest, through prayer, into the body of Christ). During this time, children could speak to Fr Andrew and say sorry for anything they had done wrong, knowing God would forgive them.
The Mini Vinnies continued their support for Harbour Place by collecting food to donate as part of our harvest festival. They thought about not just donating basic food, but ‘special’ things, like chocolates, biscuits and crisps, because everyone deserves to have not just the basics but things they enjoy.
Reconciliation
As Mini Vinnies, we think about how we can help people. We can help in our community but we can also help at school. We helped to plan and deliver a Reconciliation service, with the help of Fr Andrew. We started by telling the story of Peter being forgiven by Jesus after he had betrayed him. We reminded everyone that it can be hard to forgive people when they hurt us, but Jesus always forgives us and we can always say sorry when we have hurt someone. We asked every class to have some quiet time of reflection in the St Pius X Chapel. Everyone was given a sheep to write on if there was anything they wanted to say sorry for, to remind us that Jesus asked Peter to look after his sheep. We could leave our sheep in the Chapel, or take it to Fr Andrew, where we could say sorry for anything we had done wrong and ask Jesus to forgive us.
Service
We have lots of school virtues and our virtue for Mini Vinnies is Service. We reflected on the story of Jesus washing the disciple’s feet and how Peter refused to have his feet washed until Jesus explained why it was important. We want to encourage everyone to be like Jesus. We are not asking you to go around washing people’s feet. We mean that we should be trying to help other people, even when we don’t want to. We’ve set all the classes a challenge to do loads of acts of service this Lent, and when they do something good, donate some money to their class charity. At the then of Lent we will be able to help lots of different Charities, like the SVP, CAFOD, CARE, Stella Maris, and the people of Ukraine. We want to be like Jesus and help as many people as possible and we can’t do it alone. If everyone did a little bit, we could help make lots of people’s lives a little bit better
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