Prayer and liturgy

At The Divine Mercy RC Primary School, we love God and worship Him daily. Jesus taught us how to pray, and so we share in prayer and worship as a school family, in different ways and at different times during the week. Our Mission Statement is “Jesus I Trust in You” and this encourages us to grow closer to God, and believe that He is with us in everything that we do.

We begin every week with a Monday Morning Meditation assembly, on Tuesday, we have a Gospel Assembly based on the previous Sunday’s Gospel. We are fully aware that many of our children do not attend Sunday Mass. Therefore, children have the opportunity to experience and reflect on the Word of God, and start the week by sharing the ethos of our school as a Catholic faith community. on Wednesday, we celebrate Sung Liturgy together as a school and sing a selection of hymns and songs as an additional form of worship.   On Thursday we celebrate Mass together and have a whole school Celebration Assembly where children’s achievements from the week are celebrated, with a star of the week being selected from each class, and house team celebrations. On Fridays we also gather weekly for our Class Assembly, where we reflect on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. These assemblies are led by a different class each week and are planned for by both the teacher and children. They focus on what the children have been learning in RE, along with related Scriptures. The children are respectful, reverent and active participants in our assemblies. The children are invited to write their own prayers to share with our school family. Our assemblies are creative and use a range of approaches including dance, music, meditation and drama.

We engage in other forms of worship at different times of the day. This could be in response to the needs of a class, the needs of a child and their family or any issue that has been raised during the day. This worship may incorporate readings from scripture, traditional and pupil prayers, quiet reflections and reflecting on a stimulus (such as a piece of music, a PowerPoint or a story). Where Scripture is the focus, this could take place in a Guided Reading session. Drawn to the Word is also used to allow children to reflect and respond to a Psalm or Prayer focus with colouring pictures. Each class also has the opportunity to take part in mindfulness activities, including colouring, breathing techniques and meditation. Because our children experience prayer daily, they often compose their own prayers and ask for special intentions we have an indoor chapel and prayer stations around school which invite children to personal prayer.

We encourage our children to attend Sunday Mass and support them on their faith journey. Throughout the liturgical year, as a school our children attend several weekday masses at either in school or at St Edward’s Church. For some of our children, school masses are the only opportunities that they have to go to church. We have created our own mass booklets containing all the responses for week day masses to help our children to fully engage with the liturgy.

The Sacramental Programme is delivered by our catechists and they lead the children and parent meetings. Children on the Sacramental Programme attend additional Masses and receive the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Holy Communion. Staff attend these Masses to show our support for the children and their families.

After children have received the Sacraments, they have the opportunity to attend religious retreats to Walsingham and with Salford Diocese, where they can compose their own acts of worship on a theme relevant at that time.