“Don’t let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers.

1 Timothy 4: 12

Collective Worship

In Year 5 we really enjoy our collective worship. We take it in turns to plan and lead our class worship and also plan and lead class prayer times for some of the younger children.

Jesus’ Miracles and Anointing of the Sick

In RE we learnt about the seven sacraments:

and how they all fall into one of three groups.

We learnt that Anointing of the Sick is one of the sacraments of healing. Is is a special sacrament where new members are welcomed into the church.
Deacon Pat came in to talk to us about Anointing of the Sick and we carried out our own anointing in our classroom:

We also thought about what we can do for the sick in our community and wrote prayers for Deacon Pat to take to the sick within our parish.

We have also been learning about Jesus’ miracles and how they fall into two categories: nature miracles and healing miracles.
We read St. Teresa of Avila’s prayer, Christ has no Hands now but Your Hands’…

and this picture of the Chruch built out of people…

and thought about what they might mean…

and about how this might influence the way we live our lives:

Jesus’ Parables and the Kingdom of God

During the Spring term we are learning about Jesus’ parables and what they teach us about the Kingdom of God.

We have learnt that the Kingdom of God is all around us.  It is in our hearts, in everything we say, in everything the do and in everything we think.  We have also learnt about the church as an image of the Kingdom of God.
We have been thinking about the things that we can do to promote the Kingdom of God and the things that the church clergy and community do to promote the Kingdom of God.
The parables that we have been learning about are:
The Mustard Seed.
The Sower.
The Wedding Feast.
The Wise and Foolish Builders.
The Good Samaritan.
We have been acting out some of the parables in class:

We thought about how we can promote the Kingdom of God in our lives:

Creation
As part of this unit we read and compared the creation stories in Genesis, and thought about ourselves as parts of God’s creation. We reflected on our gifts and talents and thanked God for them. We realised that we have been made in the image and likeness of God:

We realised that we have a responsibility to look after his creation. St. Francis of Assisi loved the world that God created and wrote a canticle about it. We had a go at writing our own canticles:

Baptism

We learnt about the Baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan. We drew pictures…

and wrote our own storyboards.

We read John 14:27 and thought about what meaning it has for us:

and wrote prayers asking Jesus to be with us when things are hard:

Advent

During Advent we planned and led a class assembly for the rest of the school and for our parents and families. We thought about how we could prepare for Jesus’ second coming and his coming at Christmas. We wrote ‘Hope’ prayers.

We read Old Testament prophecies about the second coming and compared what we read to what we know about Jesus from the New Testament and we wrote about the angel’s visit to Zechariah.

Christmas

We thought about the nativity story imagining that we were then and then and wrote first-person accounts from different points of view.

We reflected upon how Herod felt about Jesus’ birth and wrote newspaper articles.

Parables and Sayings of Jesus

We read some of Jesus’ parables and thought about the messages they give and how we can apply these messages to our lives. We wrote modern day parables, sharing the same messages as Jesus’ parables. We thought about refugees and wrote prayers for them.

and prayers about truth.

Lent

We read spent some time thinking about forgiveness. We read about Jesus’ temptations in the desert, made Lenten promises, and wrote prayers to Jesus asking him to help us resist temptation.

We raised money for Mission Brazil and Father Hudson’s Homes.

We also unpicked the meaning of the Act of Contrition:

Holy Week

We read through the events of Holy Week and mapped them out:

Easter

We learnt about how the Paschal Candle always has the current year on it to show that Jesus is is with us now and always. Light is an important symbol in worship because Jesus is out light in the darkness. We researched the symbolism of lighting candles at the Easter Vigil and drew Paschal Candles.

We reflected on the true meaning of Easter, drew storyboards of Jesus’ Ascension into Heaven, and thought about eternal life.

We created pictures of what we through Heaven might look like.

Pentecost

We read the story of Pentecost and thought about the transformative power of the Holy Spirit. We wrote prayers, asking for help.

We learnt about the Trinity and about the different roles of each part. We drew images that we felt represented the Trinity.

The Holy Redeemer

We used Bible references to research qualities of the Holy Redeemer.  We used what we found out to write prayers and decorated them with images of the Holy Redeemer.

Marriage and Holy Orders

As part of our unit investigating the Sacrament of Marriage, Years 4 and 5 attended a wedding officiated by Deacon Pat.  We heard Old Testament and New Testament readings about Adam and Eve and the Wedding Feast at Cana and learnt about how these help to explain the importance of the Sacrament of Marriage.  God created Adam and Eve to be together and look after each other forever and to populate the world with their children.  This explains why the marriage vows include promises to remain married until “death do us part” and to raise children, which the marriage is blessed with, in the Catholic faith.  We also heard how Jesus’ first miracle was at the Wedding Feast in Cana, indicating the importance of marriage in the eyes of God.
James was our nervous bridegroom, supported by his best man (Alfie), and Isabella was our blushing bride, accompanied by her proud father (Eli) and a collection of lovely bridesmaids.  Deacon Pat explained to us that the rings signify never-ending love and helped us to understand some of the promises that the bride and groom make to each other.  He also explained to us that the Sacrament of Marriage is administered by the bride and groom and is witnessed by the priest or deacon.  This is the only sacrament which is not administered by a member of the clergy.