Chaplaincy

At Holy Rood, every child is a chaplain! To help support adults, we have a dedicated Chaplaincy lead team made up of children from Key Stage 2, who all take an active role in supporting and promoting the Catholic life of the school.  All children are given the opportunity to join the team through an application process. Our Chaplaincy team are then commissioned during a special ceremony, where they receive their Chaplaincy badge and contract from Bishop Declan at Clifton Cathedral. The children are enthusiastic and take pride when carrying out their many roles and responsibilities.  During weekly Chaplaincy club, the team are able to come together to discuss what they would like to do in the coming weeks to strengthen mission, deepen prayer and enable communion.

As part of the Lenten Prayer Walk, the children in KS2 created 'thank you' cards for people in our local community who work for the Common Good in appreciation of all their hard work caring for others. We have received some wonderful messages in response.

As part of the Samuel Partnership, members of our Chaplaincy Team were invited to take part in a collaborative Marian Pilgrimage from St Mary’s School to St Mary’s Church. At St Mary's School, they said a pilgrims prayer together before walking to St Mary's Church for a service including a litany to Mary. Each chaplain decorated a coaster with a flower on one side and wrote their own prayer intentions on the other to place around the statue of Our Lady. After the service, the children received a special Mary Medal with a pilgrim card.

To honour Mary during the month of May, the children have been taking part in flower crown craft activities which they presented during a crowning service led by our Chaplaincy team. Flowers are used to represent Mary's purity and glory, and as a symbol of her love for God and Christ. The children were invited to bring flowers into school as a way to honour Mary on behalf of themselves and their families. After the service, we donated these flowers to two local care homes.

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Chaplains of Catholic schools from the Samuel Partnership in Swindon and Malmesbury came together on the 20^th March to pray and take part in the Stations of the Cross.

Each school was given two stations to re-enact and it allowed the children to follow and pray with Jesus as they participated, thinking about His final journey of love. 

Each school reflected on their stations so creatively, using dance, song, drama and even musical instruments to convey meaning. After each station was read out, the children were given time to reflect on their own lives and the world around us, thinking about how they can work together in solidarity, to show love to others this Lent and beyond.

At the end of the service, each chaplain was given a cross and an Easter prayer card to take home as a reminder of the sacrifice that Jesus made for us and how we can continue to grow in His love.

In the lead up to Holy Week, this was a wonderful opportunity to have time to reflect together and we would like to thank the chaplains who spoke and acted so reverently, and the staff who attended and enabled us to come together as a Samuel Partnership community this Lent.

Let's get ready for Advent!

Our Chaplains have been super excited since we are approaching a wonderful time of year - Advent. They decided it would be an amazing idea to launch an assembly to the children of Holy Rood to explain what Advent means, including what we can do as children of God to prepare for Jesus' second coming. During their Chaplaincy club, they thought of fun ways to engage the children while also teaching them all about this special season. 

Tuesday 11th November 2023
Our Chaplaincy team met with Holy Rood's School Councillors today to discuss the tragic events which are currently going on in the world. They realised that unfortunately, there are families suffering in Palestine and Israel, and decided that as children of God, it is imperative that we come together and help God's world. They came up with a brilliant idea - raising money for the families currently suffering in Palestine and Israel. Posters were created to inform the rest of the children that we will be having a non-school uniform day in exchange for monetary donations!