Catholic Life
OUR MISSION
At St Joseph’s we welcome all as members of our school family.
We learn and care for each other as brothers and sisters; enriched by the teachings of Jesus.
We encourage Creativity; valuing our unique talents and skills as gifts from God.
Working alongside pupils and parents/carers, we can all succeed and realise great things.
Serving the communities within the Parish of St Joseph’s and St John the Baptist and beyond, we reach out to all.
We respect each other, our different cultures and faiths celebrating our richness and diversity.
Through worship and prayer we show our love; striving to achieve our very best.
At St Joseph’s our vision is to enable every child to fulfil their potential.
Our children are at the heart of our school. Learning and playing together in friendship, they are surrounded by the support of Staff, Parents, Governors and the wider parish and community.
At St Joseph’s we strive to deepen our Faith – living and learning as Jesus taught us, with love and forgiveness in our hearts. We believe Values are important - in particular learning Respect for ourselves, for each other and our world.
Our school is a community of faith hope and love. It provides our children with a Catholic education, which recognises life as a faith journey. The ultimate aim of a Catholic school is to develop the full potential of all our children, leading to their life-long activities being guided by the Spirit and presence of Christ, in the service of God and of others.
The role of a Catholic school is to help everyone in the school community to discover the true value and dignity of each and every human being who, loved by God, has a mission on earth and a destiny which is eternal.
Through this page we aim to share with you and celebrate many of the elements which make our Catholic school so special and show how families, the Parish and the school work together in supporting the development of our children's faith and Religious Education.
Click here to be taken to our R.E CURRICULUM PAGE
Click HERE to read our latest Catholic School's Inspection Report which was carried out in February 2022
Catholic Social Teaching
Catholic Social Teaching (CST) is based on the belief that God has a plan for creation, a plan to build his kingdom of peace, love and justice.
Our part in this is a kind of vocation for the common good, a call to treat everyone as our brothers and sisters. It is something that we all share.
The Catholic Church has seven principles of social teaching that we share with our children through all that we do, through the curriculum, special events and activity and through our ordinary actions in school.
Pope Francis emphasises that it is our duty to work together to bring about a more just and peaceful world: to put love into action. It is vital that our children can articulate the connection between Jesus’ teaching and doing good deeds.
Our Faith Council
The Faith Council at St Joseph's is a group of children who help to lead RE and worship across the school. The children are voted for by their peers and use their regular meetings to share the opinions and ideas of their class-mates. The children play a vital role in leading whole school worship, evaluating RE lessons and worship and deciding how to improve the Catholic Life of our school.
These are the members of our Faith council this year-
Sylvia and Shanice (Year 4) Natalia and Chidera (Year 5)
Theo, Zayden (Year 5) and Harlie and Freya (Year 6)
Finn, Emellia (Chair), Legend (Vice-Chair) and Jenny (Secretary) Year 6
Prayer and Worship at St Joseph's.
Prayer and worship are central to the daily life of our school. We aim to provide opportunities for children's spiritual growth and development through participation in a variety of forms of worship and through experiencing all forms of prayer: formal, informal, spontaneous, private and shared.
In this way, we aim to help the children to come to value and respect the power of prayer and its place in their relationship with God. Each class has a special prayer area.
Year 6 prayer corner for private prayer and class collective worship and a prayer focus set up for Christian meditation
The children in each class take responsibility for setting up the prayer focus for meditation choosing artefacts, special and beautiful items alongside a candle and the liturgical coloured cloth.
Shared acts of worship take place in an atmosphere of reflection and stillness, such as Christian Meditation, where we encourage each other to listen to God speaking to us and to respond. In a recent survey 84 % of KS2 pupils said that they enjoy Christian Meditation; they say that it helps them to calm down after a busy lunchtime.
We have three areas in the school grounds, where we encourage small groups and classes to pray and worship, or just spend some quiet time with God.
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We are part of the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton and our local Catholic secondary school is Cardinal Newman.
Click on the images below to be taken to their websites.
