^{"For me, prayer is a burst from my heart, it is a simple glance thrown toward heaven, a cry of thanksgiving and love in times of trial as well as in times of joy. " - St Therese of Liseux}

At St. Teresa's Catholic Primary School, collective worship is diverse and inclusive. We start each day with prayers, fostering unity amongst students and staff.  Throughout the day prayer is used to give thanks to God for our friends, the food we eat, our community and our families.

Throughout the year students plan worship sessions for classes and wider groups, sharing their faith with parents and the community. Regular Mass attendance strengthens our spiritual bond and children take active parts in reading at church.

Shared liturgy in assemblies celebrates important events, while quiet prayer time encourages reflection. Our core value, "Reflect," encourages students to ponder and grow spiritually.

Our faith council lead the beginning of each Monday collective worship, sharing prayer intentions generated by the students in their classes. As well as this, we pray through song with regular hymn practise.  At St. Teresa's, worship takes many forms, enriching our spiritual journey together.

Below you will find examples of what collective worship looks like at St Teresa's.

In the link to the right of this page you will find a prayer book which contains many of the daily prayers said by our students.

Autumn 2024-25

 

Year 6: Whole School Collective Worship

Year 6 lead our school in worship this week, teaching us about how the month of October is a month when we celebrate the Rosary and Our Lady. We were taught how to pray the Rosary and reflected upon the importance of prayer, especially prayers where we ask Mary to intercede on our behalf.

This was a reflective and contemplative experience handled with great dignity. Both children, staff and parents came away with a deeper understanding of the importance of prayer in our lives.

"Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu"

Upcoming Class Masses

(Parents and families welcome!)

The following Masses (On a Tuesday at 9.30am) will be held at St Basil's and said by Father Sabu.

Our students take a role in helping to plan and lead sections of these masses. Families, friends and parishioners are always welcome to join us in worship!

15/10- Year 6 and Year 3 attending

(Year 6 to take part in the readings bidding prayers) (Year 3 to take up the offertory) 

22/10- Year 5 and Year 2 attending

(Year 5 to take part in the readings and bidding prayers) (Year 2 offertory to take up the offertory) 

05/11- Year 6 and Year 1 attending

(Year 6 to take part in the readings and bidding prayers) (Year 1 to take up the offertory) 

12/11- Year 5 and Year 3 attending 

(Year 5 to take part in the readings and bidding prayers) (Year 3 to take up the offertory) 

19/11- Year 6 and Year 2  attending

(Year 6 to take part in the readings and bidding prayers) (mixed year group offertory) 

 

 

The Feast Of St Francis of Assisi

The Children of Year 3 (St Francis of Assisi class) celebrated St Francis' feast day by taking on the responsibility for organising a collective worship with the whole school on a Friday morning. They shared information about the Saint's life, taught us about his love for animals, nature and caring for the world around him and challenged us to consider how we can look after our world around us. The children lead the school in prayer and gave all classes a copy of St Francis' prayer to read aloud in class that day.

"Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life."

 

Creation Day Mass 2024

Sister Anne and Sister Andrea gave the students at St Teresa's the job of decorating St Basil's church for Creation Day mass. Classes and individual students created beautiful posters that are now on the walls of the church ahead of the mass this weekend (where we hope to see many St Teresa's families, including some of our brilliant Altar Servers). Well done! The church looks beautiful!

Feast day mass for St Therese

“Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” - St Therese of Liseux

Years 1-6 came together to celebrate the feast day of St Therese of Liseux, the saint that our school is named in honour of on her feast day in October.

In his sermon, Fr Sabu reminded us that St Therese did small things with great love. He spoke to the children of the importance of being kind to one another and good to their parents and teachers.

Fr Sabu asked Mr Bottjer's opinion during the sermon about whether the children at St Teresa's are living these values and he confirmed that they absolutely are!

It was a lovely mass with great reading from some of our prefects, beautiful hymns and a great turn out from parents and local parishioners. 

At the end of mass, one parishioner told staff that the hymns were beautiful and that the children sang particularly well. He congratulated the staff and students for their hard work in preparing the mass.

Thank you everybody who supported our feast day celebration mass!

St Teresa’s students and families support Christus Trust Mass

St Teresa’s Catholic Primary School is a proud member of the Christus Catholic Trust.

This is a group of seven Catholic schools in the local area who work together and support one another to improve outcomes for the children in our care.

The mass took place in Brentwood Cathedral and was presided over by Fr Stephen Meyers. St Anne Line Infants, St Thomas of Canterbury, St Joseph’s, St Mary’s, St Peter’s, Holy Cross and our school were in attendance. Members of staff and a group of students and their families also supported the celebration. Some of our year six students sung in the choir, helped in the offertory and also read aloud the bidding prayers. The students represented us beautifully.

 

New Faith Council return to lead prayer in whole school collective worship

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18: ".Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

Our new faith council have begun once again leading the opening prayers in our Monday, whole school liturgy sessions. The classes collaborate to create prayer intentions which are then read aloud by the faith council.

On our first whole school collective worship Year One thanked God for creating the world (having recently been studying the book of Genesis) and the older classes prayed for the strength to make good decisions, thanked God for our school and staff and prayed for those who are sick.

+ Lord in your Mercy - Hear our prayers +

Summer 2023-24

EYFS Collective Worship

Special Collective Worship For Bishop Alan - June 2024

St Teresa's Faith council created and carried out a whole school collective worship for parents, governors, staff, Father Sabu and our special visitor, Bishop Alan.

The worship included a reflection upon the life of St Teresa, considering how the Little Way may be lived out in our lives, as well as a reading of the Parable of The Prodigal Son and a rendition of one of our favoured hymns: "I do my best for You".

Following the collective worship, Bishop Alan addressed the school and the Faith council.

Bishop Alan commended the faith council on a beautiful and reflective collective worship and commented on how the message of trying our hardest, doing our best and helping others shone through. 

Bishop Alan later met with the Faith Council at a special meeting and spoke with them about life at St Teresa's, answering questions and praising them for their hard work this year.

 

May Procession 

Thank you so much for your donations of flowers to our May procession. It helped to create a beautiful centerpiece for our collective worship.

This was once a regular tradition at this school which we have revived and hope to continue in future years. It was a brilliant way to mark the month of May, when we celebrate Our Lady.

The children sung beautifully and made us all very proud.

Mr. J Bottjer (Head Teacher )

 

Ascension Mass

We celebrated the Ascension at St Basil's alongside parishioners at St Basil's. Years one to six attended and sang beautifully. Father Sabu's homily caused the children to consider both maths as well as RE!  Jesus "ascending" to heaven and the Holy Spirit "descending" to earth was linked to "ascending" and "descending" numbers to help the children understand. Very cross-curricular! Our students sang beautifully, and we received lots of compliments from parishioners for their beautiful conduct and sensible behaviour.

May Procession Rehearsal

Preparation for the May Procession is well under way! Fr Sabu and Mr Bottjer observed our students practice this morning. Here is a preview of their singing:

Mid Week Mass: Come and join us!

We have been attending mid-week Tuesday mass at St Basil’s this academic year. 

If you would like to attend the same mass as your child’s class, below are some of the mid-week masses we are intending on attending.

If you come along, you will often get a chance to hear our students read and altar serve.

Tuesday Mass begins at 9.30am and is usually less than an hour in length.

 

 

Spring 2023-24

Year 3 and 4: Stations of the Cross

The year 3 and 4 stations of the cross tableau was a poignant and moving exploration of the passion of Christ. The children gave through provoking readings and moving hymn recitations. Father Sabu came to watch the production and said that all the families who went to see this would have come away with a much deeper understanding of the true meaning of Easter.  The event was attended by families of our students, members of our governing body, the parish council and the wider parish community.

Well done for your maturity and hard work year 3 and 4, we are all very proud!

Key stage 2: Reconciliation

In the lead up to Easter, a large number of children in Key Stage 2 chose to attend a reconciliation service at St Basil's where they had the opportunity to pray and reflect upon their actions. The act of asking for forgiveness and considering what we can do to be the best version of ourselves ties in beautifully with our school values, where we challenge learners to continuously reflect upon their thoughts and deeds, as well as our behaviour policy which is rooted in Christian values and the teaching of self control and kindness to one another.

Year 5 Collective Worship: Lent

Children in year 5 organised a whole school collective worship to explore the theme of lent. This included poignant readings and meaningful reflections. Parents praised the maturity of the students and the reverence with how the subject matter was handled.

Year 3 and 4 Stations of the Cross Hymn Practise

Children in years 3 and 4 have been singing beautiful Easter songs in preparation for their stations of the cross Easter tableau. We cannot wait to see the full production!

Songs of Praise in the City

A select number of KS2 children have been performing in the commonwealth choir. This choir contains schools of various denominational and non-denominational schools. In spring term we were invited to perform alongside the grenadier guards in the Guard's chapel in London. We sung various hymns of praise to a live audience.  This experience was a celebration of our young people, a coming together of various types of school and faith tradition and a spectacular scene of collective worship in an awe inspiring setting. 

Collective Worship During Lent

Year 5 have written prayers of thanks to Jesus during Lent. These beautiful prayers have featured in their in-class collective worship and are currently on display in their prayer area.

Weekly Hymn Practise Recording  07/03/24

Every week, we join for prayer and to sing hymns. Click below to hear an excerpt of our beautiful songs of praise.

Ash Wednesday

Ks2 represented the school beautifully in Ash Wednesday Mass.  Ks1 were visited by Sister Andrea who spoke to the classes about lent and administered ashes.

Autumn 2023-24

 

Monday Whole School Collective Worship - Now lead by Faith Council.

The faith council for 2023-24 will be leading the school in prayer every Monday morning. They will present prayer intentions to be read out in front of the whole school. These are normally generated by the class. However, if you or your family have a specific prayer intention, please let us know and we can add this to our Monday Collective Worship prayers.