Pupil Voice – Catholic Life and Mission
Our Catholic faith is very important to us at Saint Norbert’s and it is at the heart of our curriculum, policies and all we do at our school.
Use the links below to find out more about our Catholic Life and Mission.
This year, Ash Wednesday will fall during the February half term break. Here is a resource to explain more about Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent: Ash Wednesday And The Season Of Lent
Here is a Lenten journey map with suggested activities to help you and your child further explore the Lenten themes of fast, pray and give: Lenten Journey Map 2026
In 2025, Advent began on Sunday 30th November; the fourth Sunday before Christmas day. On this day, the new church year began and we entered into Cycle A.
Here are some resources to help you to journey through Advent and prepare for Christmas together at home.
Advent At Home – Weekly reflections, activity suggestions and prayers.
We began our Live Simply journey in September 2024. We are looking forward to putting our pledges into action and building on our already good links with parents, our parish and our local community.
To find out more about our Live Simply journey so far, please click here.
The principles of Catholic Social Teaching are promoted at Saint Norbert’s and both pupils and staff actively make links to these in day to day life. We recognise ways in which we already live these out and we look for new ways to put these into action for the good of our local, national and global communities too.
Within our Celebrations of the words and during our retreat days, including when thinking about our missions, we often link in Catholic Social Teaching. We also refer to Catholic Social Teaching in our weekly newsletter and link these when appropriate to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
We display our own Catholic Social Teaching posters in our classrooms which helps us make links to these and recognise more independently ways in which we can live these out in our own lives.
The Jubilee Year was a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the theme of hope, what this means to us and how we can share it with others.
In Lent 2025, we hosted a joint retreat day with pupils from Saint Augustine’s Catholic Voluntary Academy in Stamford and we walked to our parish church for a Jubilee Mass with Bishop Patrick.
In Pentecost 2 2025, we had a whole school retreat linked to different themes from the Jubilee Year. Our Chaplaincy Team planned and led different prayer stations for every class to visit and we tied in our CAFOD Live Simply award pledge of having a ‘Disconnect to Reconnect’ Day.
Here are some useful links which will direct you to more information about the Jubilee Year:
Jubilee 2025 – Pilgrim of Hope (Official website)
Jubilee Year 2025 (CAFOD)
Each week the staff and pupils at Saint Norbert’s can all nominate their peers for this award, for those little acts of mercy and kindness. In the Advent term 2024, we introduced ’Heart that Sees’ stickers!
Our Heart That Sees award might be given to a pupil, a member of staff, a volunteer, a visitor or even to our families and people within our community. This special award acknowledges actions which show the spirit of discipleship. It often links to the principles of Catholic Social teaching too.
On the pink hearts photographed below, pupils have written examples of actions which they think demonstrate a heart that sees.
The Heart That Sees Award is always celebrated in our weekly school newsletter which is shared with families and on our school website for our wider community. You can see some examples of previous winners below.
During the Year of Prayer, we were invited to take part in a diocesan project; to celebrate the diversity within our school community by exploring how many different languages we could pray the Our Father in between us. It was wonderful to see so many families get involved.
We also decided to explore the prayer that Jesus taught us in a creative way as a whole school. We created our own Lord’s Prayer Labyrinth on the school field and explored each line through sensory and prayerful experiences. Older and younger pupils teamed up to go around the labyrinth and it was a wonderful afternoon.
We created our own ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ display in the main corridor celebrating all of this. We also highlighted the monthly prayer themes provided by our diocese above our ‘prayer web’ in the foyer of our school.
For Advent 2024, Mrs Wright made an Advent Calendar which was shared with all of our pupils and families. She also designed and shared ‘Celebration of the word at home’ mats for each week of Advent.
For the Feast Day of our Lady of Lourdes (11th February) 2024, Mrs Wright made a video which was shared in all classrooms to help the pupils and staff to learn more about Saint Bernadette and the special story of what she experienced in Lourdes.
Our retreat days are planned and led by our Lay Chaplain Mrs Wright. The themes are chosen in accordance with the liturgical year or to coincide with themes and events within our diocese or the worldwide Church.
Our current focus during the academic year 25-26 is to increase pupil involvement in the planning and delivery of these retreat days.
We have a planned retreat day during Advent, Lent and the Pentecost term.
Our Advent retreat in 2023 was split into three parts: message, journey and charity. We created angel themed artwork after hearing the story of when God sent his messenger, the Angel Gabriel to tell Mary that she had been chosen to be the mother of His son. We made religious themed Christmas cards, wrote Advent promises and thought about little acts of kindness that we could do during Advent to help us get ready for the coming of our saviour at Christmas.
Our Lent retreat focussed on the ‘Year of Prayer’ and we looked more at different ways to pray. Children explored the different types of prayer creatively in their classrooms and they also wrote Lenten promises. We created our own ‘Garden of Gethsemane’ in the school hall and pupils were invited down in class groups to spend time in quiet reflection after hearing the scripture of when Jesus prayed in the garden before his arrest, trial and crucifixion. We ended the day by learning the new hymn for the Jubilee.
In the Pentecost term, we explored the theme of ‘God’s Wonderful World’. We focussed our day on the story of Creation and learnt more about Pope Francis’ Encyclical Laudato Si’. The children created artwork based on this theme and came down in Key Stage groups to take part in a meditation in the school hall which was all about stars. The children wrote and decorated their own prayers.
The Chaplaincy Team helped Mrs Wright to plan this Advent retreat and came up with so many wonderful ideas! We started by discussing possible themes together before settling on the theme of light and a Year 5 pupil came up with the retreat title ‘Let People See the Light’. We decided to split the retreat in half, focussing first on the coming of Jesus, the light of the world before moving on to reflect on how we can let our own light shine to help others encounter God. Through scripture, prayer, singing and artwork, we enjoyed exploring our themes and getting ready for the coming of Jesus at Christmas. The children were also invited to bring in loose change on the day which we used to make a big candle on the playground. Through this, we raised £49.59 which we will use to buy a CAFOD World Gift.
On Tuesday 1st April 2025, we hosted a hub retreat at Saint Norbert’s school. We were joined by pupils, staff and a governor from Saint Augustine’s in Stamford. The day was led by our Lay Chaplain, Mrs Wright.
During the day, we visited prayer stations which had been planned by members of the Chaplaincy Team from Saint Norbert’s. Each of these was based on one of the Jubilee themes. Upon completion of each one, we received a stamp on our own Jubilee Pilgrim’s Passport, which had been designed in the style of a keepsake bookmark.
We were delighted to be joined by Hannah Leech (our Lead Lay Chaplain) an Tom Baptist (our Director of Chaplaincy) who led us in a hymn practice during which we sang the Jubilee hymn and others in preparation for Mass in the evening. We shared an evening meal together and played outside on the field.
At about 6pm, we set off on foot on a pilgrimage of our own to our parish church carrying Luce, our posters and our lanterns of hope. Each school carried their banner in the entrance procession at Mass and pupils from our school did the offertory. Bishop Patrick celebrated the Mass with many priests and deacons also attending, including Fr Jim who welcomed us all warmly and thanked everybody for coming.
It was an amazing day!
On Thursday 17th July, Saint Norbert’s enjoyed their Pentecost Term Retreat Day. The theme for this was ‘Disconnect to Reconnect’. As part of our CAFOD Live Simply journey, we enjoyed a day of simplicity and rest. We used as little electricity as possible and did a lot of creative activities involving art, design and technology. We enjoyed spending time together and enjoying God’s wonderful world in our beautiful school grounds. Members of our school Chaplaincy Team planned and led prayer stations linked to some of the themes of the Jubilee Year too (hope, rest, care for creation and justice and peace). Mrs Wright led our opening Celebration of the word outside on the field, and it was joyful to be together at the end of another busy school year and to have this time set aside to rest and to consider how we can all live more simply, sustainably and in solidarity with our global family.
You can find out more about our Live Simply journey here.
To help our pupils develop their liturgical awareness and be more aware of the distinction between Advent and Christmastide, the focus of this retreat was on waiting and preparing. We focussed on John 1: 5, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out.”
Throughout the morning, each class had a turn taking part in a meditation about the Christmas story which reminded us all that Jesus is the true reason for the season. These meditations were led beautifully by our Chaplaincy Team members. Our main mission activity throughout the morning was to complete heart themed artwork which helped us reflect on two important things; the first was how we can prepare our own hearts for the coming of Jesus and the second was how we can look ahead to 2026 and our Bishop’s next priority which will be Missionary Discipleship.
On Thursday 26th February, members of the Chaplaincy Team led a beautiful retreat day based on Lenten themes that can be found in the story of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis. Through three prayer stations each class looked at three themes more closely. Beginning with a visit to the beautiful Narnia section of our school library, the pupils visited ‘The Frozen Kingdom’ prayer station which looked at sin and darkness in today’s world and how acts of kindness and penance during Lent can help ‘thaw’ the frozen world and bring the light and goodness of Christ into our communities. Next, they visited ‘The Stone Table’ where we explored how the sacrifice of Aslan can be linked to the sacrifice of Jesus who died for our sins so that we might be forgiven and live. Lastly, they visited the prayer station entitled ‘Hear the Lion Roar’. We looked ahead to the joyous celebration of Easter that we are currently preparing for and heard the scripture from the Book of Revelation in which Jesus is called ‘The Lion of Judah’. In rising from the dead, Jesus gives us hope in a new and everlasting life. Throughout the day, pupils explored these themes further in their classrooms, with Key Stage One doing art and craft activities linked to the theme of bringing light into the world and Key Stage 2 doing artwork linked to the triumphant victory of the Lion of Judah. We ended the day with a beautiful Celebration of the word during which classes were invited to share what they had learnt and produced throughout the day.
Our Chaplaincy Team help with leading and promoting the Catholic Life and mission along with Collective Worship of our school. They are inspiring young people who have a personal desire to be disciples of Christ. You can find out more about our Chaplaincy Team on their own dedicated page by clicking here.
We have an active Mini Vinnies team at Saint Norbert’s. This group of children are passionate about putting Catholic Social Teaching into action and especially Preferential Option for the Poor. In October 2024, they organised a collection for the local foodbank, Project Saint Thomas, who were very grateful for the donations which they received as a result of this.
