Christ's Body

This week in worship, we looked ahead to the celebration of Corpus Christi.  It is a special feast day in the Church's year when we reflect on the centrality of the Eucharist in our lives.  The Eucharist (meaning Thanks Giving) is a sacrament in which we receive God as food and become part of his body, the Church, in Holy Communion.

Whilst the Eucharist is a mystery and an eternal source of reflection and contemplation, food (and meals) is a very accessible theme that all of our children can understand.  Food sustains our bodies and keeps us strong.  When we are hungry we are not the best version of ourselves.  In the same way, Good feeds us spiritually, helping to keep our hearts, minds and souls strong.  If we are spiritually hungry, we will be unlikely to have the energy to respond to God's call.   

Over the coming weeks, we will be celebrating with the children in Juniors who will be receiving Holy Communion for the very first time.

Light will break forth like the dawn

In RE this week, Year 5 have been analysing the words of Isaiah. The children had to highlight the words that stood out to them and identify what the message was. 

Using the language from the scripture, their next task was to create a piece of art on what the meaning of Isaiah 58:3-8 was. How does God want us to behave ?

The children produced some fabulous pieces of art and here are just a selection from across the 3 classes.

Our House is on Fire

As part of our work in Global Goals week, Year 6 have written letters to our local MP Anglea Richardson to persuade her to take action to combat climate change. We started by researching climate change and thinking about what information we wanted to include in our letters. We looked at the inspiring work of Sir David Attenborough and Greta Thunberg as well as the wise words of Pope Francis and used this as ammunition to write our letters. Oscar wrote an incredibly powerful and compelling letter explaining how our delicate ecosystem is struggling to survive and Scarlett addressed Anglela Richardson with a plea to stop this colossal conundrum. Daniel even used his recent saxophone performance in a musical event that Mrs Richardsion attended to help appeal to her sense of duty! All in all, the children wrote some truly compelling letters and we are looking forward to receiving a response.

June’s ‘Right of the Month’ and ‘Wellness Warrior Challenge’ is:

Article 22 - You have the right to special protection and help if you are a refugee. 

A refugee is someone who has had to leave their country because it is not safe for them to live there.  During this month, many celebrate World Refugee day on the 20th June. 

This day honours the courage, strength and determination of women, men and children who are forced to flee their homeland under threat of persecution, conflict and violence.

Did you know the following people were refugees: 

• Freddie Mercury – Lead singer of the band Queen, fled to England from Zanzibar in 1964.

• Rita Ora – Singer, came to the UK as a refugee from Kosovo as a baby.

• Judith Kerr – Children’s writer, “The Tiger who Came to Tea” “When Hitler stole Pink Rabbit” was a  German-Jewish refugee.

• Albert Einstein – One of the world’s most famous scientists was a German-Jewish refugee.

You may like to think about any refugees you know, or how you can support the current refugee crisis.  Perhaps you could draw a backpack with the items you would take if you had to flee the country. 

Reconciled

Year 3 enjoyed a different kind of RE lesson this week. With the beautiful weather providing a fantastic opportunity for some outdoor learning, we were able to spend some time in the Prayer Garden.

We began the lesson reflecting on the choices we had made during half term with some calming music in the classroom. After our sombre walk through school, we arrived at the Prayer Garden and began to think about the stages of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. 

Some children were brave enough to share stories about the things they could have done differently over the half term week, and there was ample opportunity for reflection and discussion about better choices that could have been made. We ended with our school prayer, as a reminder that we can use these words to guide us every day.

It was wonderful to see the children who will soon be making their First Holy Communion make links between their First Reconciliation and our lesson. Please join us in keeping all of these children in your prayers as they reach this milestone in their Faith journey over the coming weeks.

Nature & Nurture

This week the Nursery children have been making the most of the sunny weather and have been playing in the garden. Nature provides a holistic learning environment. Nature helps a child develop in many ways such as increasing physical health, enhancing social-emotional development, and imaginative play.

Spiritual Council

This week 4 of our Year 3 Spiritual Council members were lucky enough to be invited to Guildford Deanery School Retreat at Wintershall. They had a wonderful day exploring their faith, thinking about their role within the School and took part in some fabulous activities. In the morning, they encountered the important animals from the BIble and pondered why these animals were chosen by Jesus such as a donkey and sheep. During the afternoon, the children reflected on the Pentecost story and what it meant for them while producing a Pentecost flame to share with the rest of the School. Fr John then led a beautiful liturgy to help the Spiritual Council think about how they can go forth and bring this encounter with God back to school. Thank you Rydes Hill school for transporting us to the event.  

Thou roguish dread-bolted measle 

In English this week, Year 4 began to learn about William Shakespeare. Although we had all heard of him before, we learned some more interesting facts about his life, for example his Dad was the Mayor of Stratford-upon-Avon and he was married at the age of 18 which is younger than some of our siblings. In an exciting and hilarious lesson, we used some of the insults written by Shakespeare to generate our own rude and comical insults.The lesson was really fun and it helped us understand that we don't need to know the meaning of every word to know what is being said. Maybe this will be the first and last time we are allowed to call our teacher a grizzled, eye-offending pig-nut or a saucy, clay-brained hugger-mugger without getting a red card! We are looking forward to learning about The Tempest in the next few weeks. 

St Martha's Meals

Our thanks to 3M for a beautiful class worship this morning, focusing on the importance of meals.  Sharing a meal with friends and family gives us the time not only to nourish our bodies but also to feed our souls as we spend quality time with each other and thank God for our blessing.  The Bible is full of accounts related to food and meals - Jesus taught us how to break bread together and, in doing so, remember his real presence amongst us.   Thank you St Martha's Class for a beautiful worship. 

Nourishing Witnesses

Congratulations to these wonderful individuals who have all helped to nourish the community this week through their words and actions:

• Molly

• Aidan

• Zahra

• Emily

• Mrs Le Vallee