Easter Gardens

Some children in Sycamore took part in Mrs David's Easter Garden of Hope RE challenge over the Lenten period - they were all wonderfully creative.

Stations of the Cross

During Holy Week, we worked collaboratively to create a piece of artwork that represents the Stations of the Cross.

'Jubilee Pilgrims of Hope' Parent Workshop 

 This afternoon, we invited our family into our class to ‘Stay, Pray and Create’ together to celebrate the Jubilee Year. We explored the Jubilee 2025 logo and shared what we had found out about the symbols on our Jubilee Launch Day. We looked closely at the anchor within the logo and talked about how we can be an anchor of hope during this Jubilee Year. With our grown up, we selected our favourite ‘Hope’ bible verse and created a Jubilee prayer bracelet. 

Stations of the Cross

This afternoon, Sycamore Class led us on a spiritual pilgrimage through the Stations of the Cross.  At each station, we focussed on the pain and suffering Jesus endured and visited the final moments of Jesus' life before He gave up His life for us.  It was a reverent service where we took the time to reflect on our lives today and how we can continue to live through Jesus as He wanted us to, now and forever in heaven.

Jesus, we praise you, we thank you, we love you.

You gave up your life to save us.

Forgiveness Lenten Workshop

Sycamore held their Lenten prayer service this morning with a theme of forgiveness. It was a time for us to reflect on our own willingness to forgive people who have wronged us, intentionally or unintentionally. We read the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant and explored how Jesus asks us to forgive “not seven times but seventy-seven times”.

We know that to forgive as Christ forgives is sometimes impossible to do on our own. However, God simply asks that we participate in his gift of forgiveness. God has already forgiven those who are truly sorry — and all he asks us to do is to participate in his forgiveness. Forgiveness is possible when we trust in God to bring healing, forgiveness and reconciliation to our broken relationships. As God constantly searches out the lost, so should we; and as God always welcomes back the stranger, so should we.

We talked about how holding onto anger and resentment by choosing not to forgive can feel like stones weighing us down. During the final hymn of our service, we placed our pebbles around the cross arrangement of stones: thinking about someone that we were yet to forgive whilst reflecting on our willingness to forgive those who have wronged us and participate in the forgiveness of Christ.

'We Will Go Out as Pilgrims of Hope' Retreat

We joined Dan, Emily and the rest of the school on an online retreat. We explored what it means to be a Pilgrim of Hope, shared prayer and songs together and created our own crosses of hope that we are going to give to someone who needs a little bit of hope at the moment.

Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes

Today, Sycamore led a whole school Mass celebrating the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. We remembered our parish feast day by reflecting on the story of Lourdes and why Our Lady of Lourdes is so special to us. After Mass, we continued our celebrations with hot chocolate and croissants. Then, Mrs Antony brought over one of Fr Sean's very special relics (a piece of St Bernadette's clothing) to share we us. We shared Our Lady's prayer together and had a moment in silence. 

The Eucharist

Today, we explored how the celebration of Mass is an important time when God’s family comes together to meet Jesus in the Eucharist. We used bibles to locate different vocabulary and images that Jesus used to express communion with him and explored the meaning of His words. Then, we created our own artistic representations of the Eucharist.

Jubilee Year 2025: Jar of Hope

As part of our Jubilee Launch Day, we decorated an empty jar as our class Jar of Hope. We each wrote down things that make us feel hopeful and what our hope is for the world before popping them into the jar. Our Jar of Hope is on our prayer table and we will share our hopes with the class during prayer times.

Advent Workshop 

Sycamore were joined by parents and family members for their Advent workshop. As this took place in the third week of Advent, we explored how our family members bring joy to our lives and how we can spread joy to others during this important season. We also designed ornaments displaying key symbols and scripture references to add to our class Jesse Tree. 

Advent Fundraising 

We supported CAFOD during Advent with fundraising activities. We decided to have a sponsored Karaoke and a Dance-off. We are hoping to use the money we’ve raised to buy our specially chosen World Gifts to support our global Catholic family: Emergency Food, Emergency Water, The Goat that Gives and Chirpy Chickens.

Father Hudson’s Caritas 

Along with the rest of the diocese, we have been supporting Father Hudson’s Caritas with donations of toiletries as part of our Catholic Life. We have been bringing in items to support vulnerable people in society such as asylum seekers, refugees and the homeless.

LET HIS GLORY SHINE

Advent Retreat

We joined Dan, Emily and the rest of the school for the 'Let His Glory Shine' Advent retreat. It was lovely morning of prayer, singing and reflection time to think about who shines the light of Jesus.

Benediction

Sycamore went over to church for Benediction with Deacon Tim. It was a lovely, devotional ceremony which we enjoyed celebrating together as the perfect end to our week. We said the Divine Praises together and took a moment in silence to reflect on all we have to be grateful for and to pray for our any of our friends and family who might be going through difficult times at the moment. Deacon Tim blessed us with the Eucharist and we thought about our devotion and adoration for God.

Red Wednesday

We all wore red to show our support for persecuted Christians around the world. As a class we thought about all the Christians around the world who don’t have access to a bible and aren’t allowed to gather together to celebrate God’s Word. We visited church this morning to pray for, and on behalf of, those who do not have the freedom to pray in church themselves. We prayed that God gives persecuted Christians comfort, hope and the right words to say to stand up for their beliefs.

Celebration of the Word

Today, we shared the Celebration of the Word. We reflected on Sunday’s Gospel where Jesus reminds us that we are all unique and valuable to God. Out of His love for us, God has entrusted us with individual gifts to bring to the world – gifts to be given to others. The value of our gift is greatly increased when given with love. Sharing our gifts, with love, brings us closer to God. We explored what giving to others actually means. This week, using St. Francis’ prayer for inspiration, we are going to think about what we can share with others.

Faithfully Departed Class Mass

We led our whole school ‘Faithfully Departed’ Mass. We know that November is a month of remembrance when we think of those who have died. Earlier this month we celebrated the solemnity of All Saints, where we commemorated all those who have gone before us and now have their eternal reward in heaven. On All Soul’s Day, we prayed for the Holy Souls, our friends, relatives and those who have died and those who have no one to pray for them. We also remembered those who died as result of war and violence on Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday. We commend them all to the mercy of God and celebrate what we have received through them.

Missio Assembly

This morning, our Liturgy Leads led us in our Missio assembly where we learned abut the Missio campaign in Cameroon and explored CST in action. Our going forth message that we took away with us was in the words of St Teresa of Calcutta: “Do something beautiful for God.”

Prayer Bag   

So far this term, Sycamore class have shared four beautiful pupil-led prayer services together. They have been thoughtful, reverent services exploring various themes: creation, gratefulness, our school family and Mary, our Mother.

The Holy Rosary 

Our Liturgy Leads led the rosary for us this morning to celebrate Mary, our Mother. We focused on The Joyful Mysteries and prayed a decade of The Rosary together. 

Reconciliation

This week, we were exploring the meaning of reconciliation and its importance in our lives. We made a connection between our learning and the story of Joseph meeting his brothers in Egypt. Then, we created our own artistic representation of our reconciliation feels to us.

Harvest Hamper

Our Harvest Hamper is filling up nicely. We have been collecting donations for our Harvest Hamper and we're incredibly grateful to all of our families for their generosity. OLOL will be delivering all of our hampers to St Chad's Sanctuary and we hope that our donations will go some way to helping those in need.

Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Lots of Sycamore took part in Mrs D's first RE challenge of the year. The creativity and outward sign of faith from taking part in this special task has been lovely to see. We looked at all of the different designs in class and reminded ourselves that, as Christians, we wear a cross or crucifix as a symbol of our faith and a memory of the death of Christ and the early Church martyrs.

Curious and Active

This week, we shared a class assembly where we explored this half term’s Jesuit Virtues: Curious and Active. We discussed what is meant by each virtue and how we will show each virtue in our words, actions and expression of faith.

Classroom Blessing

This afternoon, Deacon Tim visited Sycamore to bless our prayer area, all the pupils and the teacher. Deacon Tim talked to us all about the coming year ahead and asked God to watch over us as we take on the new challenges that Year 4 will bring. 

Our Class Saints: St Philip Neri and St John Henry Newman

We enjoyed learning all about St Philip Neri and St John Henry Newman. Reflecting on St John Henry Newman’s prayer, we thought about what our ‘definite service’ might be and what mission in life God created us for.

New Beginnings 

We held our first whole class collective worship led by our newly appointed liturgy leads; it was a beautiful service of welcome and new beginnings.

Our Mission

We started our new year at OLOL reminding ourselves of our school Mission Statement. We created our own artistic interpretation of the key elements of the statement and explored how this mission will affect our actions and faith this year.