Prayer and Worship
Collective worship, liturgy and prayer is very important to St Paulinus. It gives children of all faiths and backgrounds time to be still and encounter God in their own way. For some children and adults, this will be a powerful moment and for others calming. We believe that it is important for us all to come together regularly, to learn from the stories in the Bible and to have that time for us as individuals to be still and reflect.
Daily worship:
Collective Worship at St Paulinus takes place every day and can take many forms; whole school assemblies/ liturgies/ worship, class prayers or class collective worship. We are also keen to invite friends, families and parishioners to join us for our special services throughout the year.
Each day begins and ends in prayer in class. Some of the prayers we say are listed below. We also say grace before lunch to thank everyone for the food we are about to eat and after lunch when we come back to class.
Over the week, each key stage experiences a key stage virtues led worship and then the whole school gathers together on a Tuesday to share the Gospel from Sunday mass. Staff and children experience different forms of prayer over the week and term so that they can all engage with this special time in their own ways. School uses the following resources to enable prayer: Mark 10 mission, prayer journaling, bible journaling, pray each day by Pat Ainge and the Sunday gospels. Child led worship is important to us and we engage in a strong developmental programme designed by the Trust to encourage pupils to develop their leadership in this area.
Parents and friends of the school join us on Fridays for our celebration assembly, where we celebrate the achievements of our pupils.
Special occasions:
Throughout the year each class leads us in class assemblies for special times or significant events e.g. Harvest festival liturgy, flowers for Mary etc. Father Jonathan, the parish priest, also comes to join us to celebrate mass in school on special occasions, like St Paulinus Day on 10th October 2023.
Mass in school and at Church
Class masses – every week, when Father Jonathan is available, classes go to church to join the parishioners in celebrating mass on a Friday. The will take part in reading the readings and prayer as well as singing. We also go to church for significant liturgical celebrations such as Ash Wednesday and the Christmas Carol service. School also organises a termly family mass on a Sunday at church where all families are invited to attend.
Prayer at home:
Overall, the school has an active prayer life. We send home various prayer bags over the year for families to pray at home e.g. the travelling crib or during October we send home the rosary bags. Families are encouraged to pray together during these times. We also send home the Wednesday word.
Prayer timetable:
Useful Website Links
Click on the images below to enlarge them.
Some useful prayers and documents:
