St Peter's students inspired to become Lasallian Leaders

St Peter’s Catholic School, Bournemouth, were delighted to be able to take their new Year 7s to St Cassian’s Retreat Centre, Kintbury, last December as it’s something they had been wanting to organise for a while. 

When a whole week at Kintbury became available the school jumped at the offer but, being the first year they had been able to do this for a Year 7 group, no funds had been budgeted for these trips so gaining money from the Lasallian Leavening Fund helped tremendously.  The funds ensured as many students as possible could go because they were able to keep the cost low, something even more appreciated by families with the trips being so close to Christmas.

Whilst on Retreat, not only did the year group build new friendships; grow in maturity (for some it was their first trip away from home overnight); strengthen their relationship with God; participate in valuable spiritual formation; deepen their knowledge of the five Core Principles; learn more about themselves; and, have enormous amounts of fun, they brought all of this back to school with them and developed into a wonderful, supportive year group.

When their tutors were asked at the end of the summer term whether they felt that the Kintbury Retreats had made a difference to their tutor group, here’s what some of them said:

I definitely think that the trip to Kintbury had a really positive impact on the year group as a whole. It was such a lovely way to start their St Peter’s journey and helped to build a real sense of community early on……. It’s been a joy working with them so far.

Yes, I would agree that Kintbury gave Y7 a chance to bond. They are a particularly close year group, and I know many really appreciated that trip together.

I definitely think that being able to go away together as a year group early on helped them to get to know each other outside of the 20 minutes they have for registration each day.   

The Kintbury trip provided a rare opportunity for a large number of the students to connect outside the classroom early in their secondary school journey. I noticed stronger friendships forming and a real sense of unity within the group and across all tutor groups. It set a positive tone that seems to have carried through the rest of the year.

All-in-all the Retreats were the ideal way to introduce this year group to what it means to be a “Lasallian” and to help them feel welcomed into our Lasallian Community. Following their Kintbury trip, a number of students fully embraced their role as a “Lasallian Leader”, becoming members of a team of students, from across the school, who help the Chaplaincy team with all that they do.  This year many of last year’s Leaders have become “Senior” Leaders having shown such a wonderful commitment to serving the St Peter’s Community and upholding the five Core Principles.

In addition, there was an amount of money allocated within the funding which the school was going to use to help develop Lasallian Leader activities and kickstart some fundraising to enable money to be available to this year’s Year 7 students who are going to be invited to go to Kintbury in December. 

The idea was to enable students - led by Lasallian Leaders - to be creative, develop their planning and delivery skills and make a positive difference to others, all under the umbrella of the Lasallian Principles.  Unfortunately though, due to unforeseen circumstances, plans needed to be put on hold and this part of the project remained uncompleted – until now!  Things are back on track and once this year’s Lasallian Leaders team are up and running (the deadline for applications closes soon) the school will be fundraising for this year’s Year 7s trips in December plus enhancing the exciting activities planned for this year’s team.

Although there was a degree of disappointment that the school was unable to fully utilise the funding last year, everything is in the Lord’s own time and, due to the delay, another exciting opportunity has now arisen to develop Lasallian Leaders further – the imminent launch of the Lasallian Awards within school.

A team of teachers has been working hard to prepare everything and they are about to join forces with the Lasallian Leaders who will support the facilitating of the Awards across various year groups but especially with our new Year 7s.  As this falls within the scope of what had allocated the remaining money for, the school will be helping to resource the Awards and have high hopes that many, many students will participate and thus benefit from this exciting opportunity.

In summary, due to the benevolence of the Lasallian Leavening Fund, St Peter’s was able to provide a Retreat experience for students that not all of them would have otherwise been able to afford.  As well as their immediate enjoyment during their trip, the school truly believes that the Retreats have helped develop this year group into the wonderful, enthusiastic, caring, vibrant, energetic, supportive and reflective group of young people that they have become. Now, as St Peter’s continue to make use of the fund’s generosity this term, they look forward to seeing what effect students can have next on the community here at St Peter’s school and, perhaps, beyond.