Year 4 Catholic Life Page
We led the school in Mass for the feast day of St George, who killed a dragon. The dragon represented wickedness and evil. We all have to fight our own dragons in our own lives. It might be pride, anger, greediness or something different. We ask God to help us fight these dragons, so that we may become true soldiers of Christ.
We have enjoyed a prayerful online assembly today with Dan and Emily from One Life Music. This musical celebration has lifted our spirits during the Liturgical Season of Easter.
This half term our new virtues are ‘Eloquent and Truthful’. We think about how we can be our best ourselves and how we can live out these virtues everyday. We think about saints who have been great examples of this.
As we are now in the season of Easter, we have changed our prayer table to reflect this. Our liturgy leads changed our prayer cloth to gold and placed flowers on our table to symbolise new life. We praise Jesus for he has risen.
Holy Week: Day 2 and 3. We focussed on Stewardship and saints that we’re good examples of this and we created some art work for each station of the cross.
Holy Week: Day 1 and 2, We looked at the different events of Holy Week, found the similarities and differences between the four gospels on the the events of Holy Week, we discussed the importance of CST and focussed on Human Dignity.
Stations of the cross service: We led the school in the 14 stations of the cross, we blew out a candle after each station and reflected on the words ‘You gave up your life to save us’.
We had a prayerful, reflective Lenten workshop with our families today. It was a lovely opportunity to pray together and think about the importance of Lent for us.
We all went to Confession this week and we prepared by examining our conscience thinking of things that we may have done that we are now sorry for. This is particularly important for Christian’s to do during Lent as we PRAY, FAST, GIVE.
We gathered to watch the CAFOD National Assembly to find out how we can help to fight global poverty this Lent.
Sycamore enjoyed a prayerful Lenten livestream with Dan and Emily of One Life music, joining together in worship and song as our OLOL family, but also joining with schools across the Midlands.
Purple is the colour used during this season and it signifies a time of preparation and a time where we focus on seeking forgiveness for our sins. We changed our prayer table cloth and displayed stones to recreate the emptiness of the desert. We also wrote prayers asking for Gods forgiveness.
As we are now in Lent, we will be joining Dan and Emily everyday to pray, sing and reflect.
Sycamore had a beautiful and prayerful art-based response to the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes on 11th February. ‘I am the Immaculate Conception’
Popes Prayer Intentions
February: For the terminally ill
Let us pray that the sick who are in their final stages in life and their families, receive the necessary medical and human care and accompaniment.
We are singing hymns together for our very special Mass, Our Lady of Lourdes that we will celebrate in Church on her feast day.
Our liturgy leads led us in a decade of the Rosary, we reflected on one of the Joyful Mysteries, the presentation of Jesus in the temple.
Today we had an assembly about The importance of Christian Unity. This week we particularly pray for this as there are lots of different churches but we all have the same belief in Jesus Christ. We think back to early Christian’s when they had to keep their faith a secret as they were persecuted for their beliefs and still to this day many Christian’s around the world are too being persecuted for this. We keep those people in our prayers and hope that one day we can all be free to express our belief and faith without fear. 
We prepared and led our Year 4 Mass on the Year of Prayer. In preparation for the Jubilee year in 2025, Pope Francis has asked that we dedicate this year to prayer, so that as a church community, we may grow closer as a people of God. Prayer is our relationship with God, and so, when we become more devoted to prayer, we build our friendship with him. We hope that the year ahead we can spend more time in prayer and help others to pray more. 
We gathered today for our Cafod assembly in which we wanted to think about how we care for our common home. Pope Francis reminds us that we must work together to look after the Earth, or common home. It belongs to everyone therefore we all have a responsibility to take care of it. We shared how we would do this with the whole school and d was chosen from each class for thinking of everyone and considering God’s creation. We have to work together to build a brighter world.’
Assembly: The Baptism of the Lord, we prayed, sang and reflected together. We discussed different artist impressions of Jesus’ Baptism and the significance of some of the symbols found in these paintings. We listened to the reading from Matthew and then we renewed our Baptismal vows.
Carol Concert 2023: What a performance by all classes!
We were so impressed with the story of the Nativity, performed by EYFS! They acted, sang and read so well. We loved it!
This morning we listened to the hymn O’ Come Emmanuel which is deep rooted in the O Antiphons with many of the titles given to Jesus heard in this hymn. Each title represents an Old Testament prophecy about the Messiah, that came the fulfilment in the person of Jesus, who he was meant to be. We pray the O Antiphons during the week before Christmas Eve (17th-23rd December).
Today we watched Year 2 deliver their Advent assembly, it was lovely. They sang beautifully and reminded us about what we should be doing this Advent and the signs and symbols we should look out for in preparation for the coming of Jesus Christ.
Today we attended Benediction in the Sacred Heart Chapel of the Church. We listened to Deacon Tim read scripture and thought about ‘How do we recognise Jesus in our lives’. We prayed for our own intentions and for those who felt sad or unhopeful at this time that they may find comfort in God.
Today we gathered wearing red to show that we are speaking out about how many Christians around the world are being persecuted for their faith. We wore a special badge and sticker to show support for Christian’s. We also donated money to help support Christians who may have lost their home because of their faith or buy bibles for those who do not have them so that they can learn more about God.
It was our Mass today about the faithfully departed as during the month of November we think of those who have died. We commend them all to the mercy of God and celebrate what we have received through them.
We gathered for an assembly today about this term's Jesuit virtues 'Attentive and Discerning', listening to Scripture about Zacchaeus the tax collector. We discovered that because Zacchaeus was accepted and welcomed by Jesus he was more attentive and discerning in his actions. We know that God welcomes us all.
This week we gathered together for our Mission Together Assembly and we thought about how |Jesus has showed up how to proclaim the Good News and serve others as he did. WE prayed together the 'Generosity Prayer' and thought about howwe cold be generous with our contributions to harvest and to our missio prayers boxes in our room as a little from all adds up to alot.
As a whole school, we have been thinking about Harvest time, and have donated food to help those less fortunate than ourselves. As a class, Sycamore have written Harvest prayers thanking our Lord for His Creation and all the wonderful food we are lucky to have. We also prayed for those who struggle with hunger and poverty, and offered our prayer petitions to keep them in God's love and care.
We went to the Year 3 assembly about the season of Creation. They reminded us about what Pope Francis wrote in his letter about looking after our common home. We are all responsible for looking after the earth that God created for us and its our mission to protect it for not only us but future generations just like God wanted us to.
Class Assembly: Mission Together-We gathered today to think about St.Therese as it was her feast day on October 1st. We discussed how we could think of little things that we could do like her that would have a great impact on someone else. We placed our mission boxes on our prayer table to put any spare change that we had in there.We the said the Mission Together Prayer.
St. Vincent de Paul Assembly: He spent his life preaching missions to and providing relief to the poor. He even established hospitals for them. This work became his passion. Today the Mini Vinnies led us in an assembly about his life and how has inpsired us to live by his example.
Hymn Practice: Singing hymns in preparation for the Year 6 Mass on the feast of St. Matthew.
Welcome to Sycamore Classes Catholic Life page. We have began our new school year thinking about our school mission, what it means and the ways in which we hope to live out the mission in our words and actions. We have began with a prayer service on new beginnings led by our new liturgy team, thought about our virtues (Grateful and Generous) and found out about our class saints St. Philip Neri and St John Henry Newman. We have been inspired by them through their example in their lives and faith.
Some examples of our work...
Our Class Charter: We hope that God will help guide us this year and that we can live our lives by his example.
Grateful and Generous: We had an assembly this morning about how we can grow to be grateful for own gifts, the gift of other people, and for the blessings of each day and generous with our gifts, becoming men and women for others.
