Secondary Link Advisor Clodagh Benning writes on behalf of the Education Department:
As the Jubilee Year ended in December, we are taking a look back at all the activities and celebrations that have been taking place in our schools and communities.
At the start of the year, schools were challenged to write pledges for the year to be, amongst many things, “agents of change working together for justice, love and peace, locally and globally”. Our picture gallery shows what students and staff from Holy Family Catholic School and Sixth Form, Walthamstow, and St. Angela’s Ursuline School Forest gate pledged to do this year. And students from the Brentwood Ursuline created bookmarks (right) to record their pledges as a regular reminder.
Schools have also been highlighting and living out Catholic Social Teachings through their actions, in particular, students in the Justice and Peace group from St. Angela’s sold cakes to raise money for children affected by the conflict in Gaza to show solidarity and respect for human dignity.
Great links between schools, parishes and local communities have been made. The picture gallery gives a snap shot of the contributions made to local charities by Grays Convent High School, and donations made by the Brentwood Ursuline to the Salvation Army for distribution to those in need.
In RE lessons, activities have included creating Holy Doors and explaining what it means to be a pilgrim of hope, as shown by students at St. John Payne in the gallery.
Class groups have explored the intrinsic link between Catholic Social Teaching and actioning change. Schools have attended meetings at Parliament (St. John Payne), increased their charitable action (Grays Convent) and understanding, to seek out opportunities within their own communities to stand in solidarity and respect each other’s dignity. St. Joseph the Worker in Hutton also supported Calais Light by making many donations and welcomed in a refugee guest speaker to better enable the students to understand what life as a refugee from Palestine is like.
Camino passport
This year, the global Catholic community has been joined in one shared journey of pilgrimage. In a literal sense, students have taken some small journeys: in St Benedict’s Catholic College in Colchester, the famous Camino passport was reimagined to include Jubilee Challenges. Students had to complete the challenges to earn stamps, and the stamps culminated in a pilgrim badge to be proudly worn on the blazer long after the Jubilee comes to an end.
And there have been some larger, longer journeys, such as pilgrimages to Lourdes and Rome for St John Payne, and All Saints.
Director of Education Flavio Vettese congratulated all who had taken part. He said: “From visits to Holy Doors, and creation of our own ones, we hope you have felt part of something bigger than yourself, and part of a community, who can, with a vision for hope, continue to be the changemakers the world needs.”
