On Saturday afternoon we had our first School, Parish Mass of this school year; to celebrate Education Sunday. It was a wonderful mass, where the children impressed us all with their confidence and maturity in taking charge of the readings and bidding prayers, as well as leading the singing in the choir, supported by School staff and parishioners.
The children also took the opportunity to thank the Parish for their amazing generosity in donating money for some new class Bibles. Thanks to the donations made by individuals in the Parish we have been able to buy 45 new bibles, to add to the 15 that we already have, so that now all the Key Stage 2 classes have a half class set. Each new Bible will have a book plate with the name of the person, or family, who donated the money for it, or of the person in whose memory it was donated, and we will take time to pray for them each time we use that Bible.
After the homily the children shared with the Parish the School action plan for achieving the Cafod Live Simply award. They told them:
“This year in school, we are aiming to achieve the CAFOD Live Simply Award for trying to live simply, sustainably and in solidarity with our local and global communities.
To achieve the award, we have to work through 9 actions which will be assessed later in the year. Some of these actions will involve Holy Redeemer Parish, so we would like to share them with you today.
Every year, we visit our care homes to sing and talk to the residents. In addition to that, we would like to make prayer cards to send to the sick and housebound people in our parish and to congratulate those who are married or Baptised.
During the year, we will continue to fundraise for CAFOD, the Maggs homeless centre and the School of Joy. We will also continue to collect for the foodbank. We are learning to work in solidarity with others as part of God’s family.
In school, we are always trying to live sustainably – to follow Pope Francis’ guidelines in Laudato Si:
We love working in the eco garden with Bob and Val and the other parishioners who help us. We have a weekly gardening club. By doing this, we are learning to take care of our environment.
Our eco council monitor the amount of energy we use in school and remind us to turn lights off and to use resources sustainably. We have compost bins in every class.
We have a battery collection point to recycle batteries.
We have a pre-loved clothes stand so that parents do not need to buy new uniform. The money raised supports the Cornish SEAL Sanctuary.
This year we will take part in ‘Recycle to read’.
As part of ‘Cut your Carbon week’ we raise awareness in school of the importance of reducing what we use.
We take part in a litter picking event with Wychavon Council twice a year.
Each term we have a ‘Turn off Day’ where we will not use any computers or smart boards in class.
We have links with the HIGAonon community in the Philippines. This helps us to think about the consequences of climate change and deforestation. We have planted trees and are fundraising for a 5 year project to counteract deforestation in the Philippines.”
Then the children thanked everyone for listening and invited them to get involved in any way they wanted to, as part of strengthening and building even more links with our parish community, and finished by asking the Parish to pray for us as we work towards this very special award.
Afterwards there were refreshments and board games in the Parish Hall-a lovely way to round off such a wonderful community event. Thank you to all of the staff, parents and parishioners who helped with the refreshments-especially the washing up and clearing away!
