Catholic Life and Mission
What Makes Our School Distinctive?
Our Catholic faith makes our school distinctive because faith is at the centre of our learning.
Our school mission statement is "following in Jesus' footsteps, we Live, Love and Learn together as a school family to build a better world."
At school we help the children to understand and to live out the meaning of these words.
Live
The children LIVE life to the full by being active in their community – the children regularly contribute to Gloucester Food Bank and during the course of the year they raise funds for Mission Together which is all about ‘children helping children’. The children respond to world disasters by collecting money and arranging donations and carry out various other acts of charity throughout the school year in local care homes and Gloucestershire Royal Hospital.
Love
They LOVE one another as they wish to be loved by living out the gospel in their daily life and following in Jesus’ footsteps through their words and actions.
Learn
They LEARN to make the right choices in life – our Core Virtues programme, which is delivered every Tuesday morning in our whole school Act of Worship, focuses on key values which help the children to grow spiritually and morally. The children also learn to make the right choices in their learning – using the talents God has given them to their full potential.
Gospel Celebration of the Word
Every Monday morning the whole school gathers together for our Gospel worship. Children volunteer to lead this celebration of the word. This is a very interactive worship during which children's ideas, thoughts, knowledge and opinions are captured and used to produce a Gospel display. Sometimes, key questions are posted on the interactive display and the children are encouraged to respond to these throughout the week. The focus of the Gospel celebration of the word is to help the children to understand God's message to us.
Core Virtue Act of Worship
Every term we introduce a new core value and this value is explored and explained in a celebration of the word. The children are encouraged to contribute to the whole school core virtue interiactive display and parents/carers are provided with certificates which they can award to their child for displaying the core value at home. These certificates are celebrated in the Tuesday morning celebration of the word .
St. Peter
Our school is named after St. Peter, a disciple of Jesus. Peter was a very special friend to Jesus and when Jesus died he became the leader of the church on earth. This is what Jesus wanted because he said to Peter, “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church.” Peter became our first Pope. As Pope, Peter spread the good news, showed love and made the right choices.
Sadly, Peter (like Jesus) was crucified. Peter was crucified upside down – this is because Peter didn’t think he was worthy to be crucified in the same way as Jesus. Today, our Pope is called Pope Francis – he is a very humble Pope who cares very much for the sick, poor and suppressed people in our world today.
St. Peter's Catholic Primary School serves six parishes:
The school strives to ensure it has good links with each of these parishes and vice versa. The priests visit the school regularly and play an active role in its life through informal and formal visits to classes. They are also actively involved in the spiritual/prayer life of the school as they celebrate Mass, attend services and provide all children with the opportunity to attend the sacrament of reconciliation.
Parents from St Peter's parish have started to produce a Family Newsletter - the aim of which is to provide parents with background information to special feast days/liturgical seasons etc and to provide parents with ideas/activities for how they can develop their children's faith at home. The parents who write this Newsletter also reflect on the challenges they experience on their faith journey as a family which is so important as it helps us all to realise that everyone experiences difficulties!
Please click on the image below to open up the full pdf document.
