Lighthouse team visit Southwark Cathedral

48 images

The Lighthouse team enjoyed their trip to Southwark Cathedral. For some, it was their first time travelling on a train. We travelled with the Prayer Rangers from Holy Family School. At London Bridge, we stopped to look at the Shard building, which we thought was incredibly high! In the morning, we made special beeswax candles and candle holders with beeswax and clay. We enjoyed being creative and engraving designs on our candle holders. After, we had a tour around the Cathedral and had to think what Bible story each stained glass window was featuring. The highlight of the tour was spotting Doorkins Magnificat, the Cathedral's cat. In 2008, the stray cat started to visit the Cathedral and sat the door each day in the hope of being fed. After being fed each day, the cat decided the Cathedral was her home! It is not unusual to spot Doorkins during a service at the Cathedral and she has even had the honour to entertain the Queen! It was a very interesting and enjoyable day and for most of the children, their first time in a Cathedral.

Other Faiths

55 images

As part of Religious Education, it is important for children to be encouraged to develop an awareness, an understanding of and develop a mutual respect for people of another faith. During the week of 16th October 2017, each class studied an aspect of Judaism. The week started off with a talk by a Jewish visitor, Jon Leigh, who spoke to the children about The Torah and Jewish Worship in assembly. He then delivered workshops to different classes in Key Stage Two and the children enjoyed a taster of the Jewish faith. The children had lots of interesting questions to ask and follow-up work was done throughout the week by class teachers. Both staff and children enjoyed studying Judaism and found it interesting to compare the Jewish faith to the Catholic faith, looking at the similarities and differences.

Standing in the hall of fame - Choir perform at the O2

24 images

The School Choir won a national competition for a place to sing at the Indigo, O2. Their performance was outstanding! They enjoyed meeting the special guest Ore Oduba, who gave an inspirational talk about perseverance. He is a television news and sports presenter and is well known for presenting BBC children's news. He also featured on 'Strictly Come Dancing' and was the dance champion in 2016. The Choir certainly will remember this day for the rest of their lives! It was a real accolade to perform in such a prestigious venue as the O2.

Lent 2017: Big Fish

91 images

During Lent, we have reflected on those people around the world who are living in extreme poverty and those that do not have enough money to meet their basic needs, such as food, housing and clothing. On Thursday 30th March, we united as a whole school to turn little fish into big fish by 'scaling up' small fishes. Each class took turns to fill as many fish as they could with silver coins. Year 4 led the way on the fundraising event. In Maths, they were learning about area and perimeter and applied their learning in a practical way too. They each designed their own 'swimming pool' for the playground. One design was chosen and the whole school had to fill as many fish within the area of their swimming pool. The Lighthouse group worked together to count the money. Reception and Year 5 managed to fill the most fish, filling four A3 sized fish each. As a follow-up activity, children were encouraged to use their estimating skills to calculate how much money it would take to fill one fish and how many different ways they could make that total. It was an enjoyable fundraising event all in aid of Cafod.

St Thomas More and St John Fisher Church Visit

34 images

As part of the Year 3 and Year 4 RE Curriculum, The Mass is one of the topics covered. Both classes visited our local Catholic Parish Church, where a visiting priest, Fr Terry Donnelly spoke about the Mass, the purpose and its importance. The children handled the holy objects that are used during Mass and they learnt about their symbolism. It was a very informative lesson and the children worked together to find the correct name for the holy objects and the parts of the Church.

Carol Service 2016

18 images

The Junior classes took part in an Advent Carol Service at our local Parish Church. Each class made decorations for the Church and told of the story of Jesus' birth through drama and song. Year 6 led the drama with freeze-frames, which portrayed the wonderful story as we heard the Readings. Carols were sung in between the Readings, which added to the spiritual beauty of the occasion.

STM's Bake Off for MACMILLAN

32 images

On Friday 30th September, the school held a Bake Off competition and cake sale in aid of MacMillan Cancer support. The event was part of the 'World's biggest coffee morning' annual fundraising campaign. Each child that entered paid £2.00. Two prizes were awarded for the best looking cake, one from KS1 and one from KS2. After the judging took place, all the cakes were sold off after school and an amazing amount of money was raised, totally approximately £400.00. Thank you to everyone who either made cakes to go on sale, bought cakes or donated to a very worthy charity.

Crowning of Mary

76 images

On the last Friday in May, we came together as a whole school to honour Mary, our heavenly Mother. We started our Crowning ceremony with a reading of The Visitation followed by praying a decade of the Rosary altogether outside in the playground. We formed a 'human rosary' in the centre of the playground, consisting of the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be prayers and the rest of the school sat around the outside of the rosary. Each child brought in a flower and processed into the hall to place their flower at the statue of Our Lady's feet. We finished our prayerful celebration with a well-known hymn to Mary called 'Bring flowers of the rarest'. Thank you to everyone for making this a truly prayerful occasion.