"Collective Worship" (CW) is a term used in legislation, all schools are expected to to provide CW. In Catholic education we use the term "Prayer and Liturgy".

We believe that Christian worship in The Divine Mercy Catholic school names and celebrates God's presence in our lives. It is concerned with giving glory, honour, praise and thanks to God. It is our loving response, in word and action, to God's invitation to enter into relationship, made possible through the work of Jesus Christ and the witness of the Holy Spirit.

Prayers are held each day to enable each child to ‘reflect’ on their Christian and moral beliefs.

Aims for Prayer and Liturgy include:-
 

• Contemplate something of the mystery of God
• Reflect on spiritual and moral issues
• Explore their own beliefs
• Respond to and celebrate life
• Experience a sense of belonging and develop community spirit
• Develop a common ethos and shared values
• Enrich religious experience
• Grow in liturgical understanding and development
• Reinforce prayers which are part of the Catholic tradition
• Reinforce positive attitudes
• To participate fully
• To take time out 'to wonder at', 'to come to terms with' and 'to give worth to.'

We believe that Prayer and Liturgy in our school aims to provide opportunity for all pupils and staff to experience the above.
 

Prayer and Liturgy is a very important part of our school life. We have daily class and weekly school Prayer and Liturgy. Liturgical Prayer is generally led by the GIFT Chaplaincy Team and the children have opportunities to plan their own Liturgical Prayer.

We hold our weekly joint class masses in our school hall each Wednesday at 11am where the children sit alternately with an older child next to a younger child to build friendships. Mass is led by Fr Rob and everyone is welcome, just come to the school office. You can see the slides we use for mass and the hymns that we sing by clicking here. In the slides we have included pictures that link to our “Come and See” RE scheme of work.  

Mr Mitchell, our RE Leader, creates weekly Liturgical Prayer that is specific to our school. It covers a wide variety of topics such as daily Gospel readings, Saints, school prayers and hymns, our Beatitudes. You can see our weekly Collective Worship slides by clicking here. We use consistent images in our Collective Worship to link to the 5W’s. This website is a great place to explore for more information on daily Gospel readings and Saints under the Our Faith section - https://www.vaticannews.va/en.html

Singing is a great way to pray, St Augustine of Hippo is credited with “He who sings, prays twice!”. We have school hymns that are linked to our school mass, hymns for topics and our school song (Bruno Mars, “you can count on me” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc6T9iY9SOU) which we use across the whole school to support God’s message of friendship. Our choir is led by Mrs Cameron (a gospel choir singer) and regularly performs both inside and outside school.

We use religious art across the whole school to help our children learn. The art is generally introduced through Collective Worship and then displayed in relevant areas in school as well as in our RE Art Gallery located at the entrance to our school hall. This website is a great place to explore about Christian Art - https://www.christianart.today/index.ph

We link our Liturgy and Prayer to the Catholic Liturgical Calendar. In our school hall we have our own Liturgical Calendar that our GIFT team rotate during assemblies. Each class also has a Holy Table that links to the Liturgical Calendar. For more information about the Liturgical Calendar have a look at this website http://liturgyoffice.org.uk/Calendar/ 

Click here to see some Liturgical Prayer slides that our GIFT team helped to produce to explain the Liturgical Calendar. All of our children take home their own Liturgical Calendar so they can share this with their family.