In February 2012 Olive Delahunty and Claire McElhone from Armagh joined our Goals Coordinators at Woldingham. They shared their experiences leading the Faith Goal in the primary and secondary schools. Their input was much appreciated and some of their suggestions have found their way into plans here for 2012-2013. It was a crisp, cool and sunny day as we took a tour around the beautiful grounds before spending the afternoon planning for June’s Heart fest. The staff at Woldingham had a more pressing visit from an inspection team the following week to plan for and we wished them well. It proved to be an excellent report.
On the left are the Leaders at Beechwood Sacred Heart
In early May Mary Hinde RSCJ joined the school leaders in Tunbridge Wells to lead a reflection on “Faith", our Goal for 2012-13, chosen some 18 months ago before we were aware of the Faith Year the pope has declared! Happy timing! Mary’s words touched those present profoundly, bringing us back to the central relationship in our faith. Ideas, experience, news and projects as well as the reports on the Intellect Goal were shared. As part of their Faith Year Hammersmith is celebrating the Eucharist at Westminster Cathedral on Thursday 25th October at 2.15pm
Heart Fest
On June 26th over 120 students from all our schools in England came together for a day of fun and prayer at Woldingham. It was a fantastic day bringing our network together to celebrate what it means to be schools of the Heart. The sun shone and all the careful planning led to a morning of activities, including art, dance and a treasure hunt, followed by a liturgy when we shared presentations from each school, listened to a letter of St Paul, prayed, sang and danced. We were delighted that Norah Lester RSCJ, Mon McGreal RSCJ and Chris Austin RSCJ were able to join us for this part of the day as well as one of the Governors, their new chaplain and Barbara Vesey, the Society's archivist. Katie Colbran, now a novice at Hayes Stuart, was with us for the full day.
You can read a fuller account of the event written by pupils from Sacred Heart School, Hammersmith by clicking on this link (This will download as a PDF)
While more local schools came for the day, the Newcastle schools stayed overnight: the High School for 2 nights sampling the boarding facilities, the primary for longer, sampling the outdoor life camping on the field opposite the Headteacher’s house. Woldingham treated the students to a barbecue and disco the night of the Fest and as the older girls left, the primary continued with a visit to Beechwood and a trip to Hampton Court before returning home in time for the weekend.
Woldingham gave us such a wonderful and warm welcome. Everyone agreed that the experience was a great success: the network was truly celebrated, it had become real for the students and we had united in joyful prayer.... The question is: what next for our network?
Fundraising for sister schools
All our schools raise money for charity in a range of different ways. In the last year Hammersmith has been supporting Villa Jardin in Argentina, Fenham St Charles Lwanga, Kalungu, Uganda and Woldingham Laini Saba in Kibera slum Nairobi, Kenya.
Europe
There are some developments on the European front. Over the next three years the European Network is offering staff from the schools an experience at Joigny. The first is in October 2012 and 22 people from France, Ireland, Scotland, England, Austria, Italy and Spain are in the first group, with some translators! Isabelle Lagneau will lead them in reflections on Madeleine Sophie and her spirituality.
Also this year there is a project for students called, “United in Prayer with Philippine”. Schools have been invited to share prayers about a country which is experiencing some kind of difficulty, for example war, poverty, famine, unemployment, disaster.. Their prayers will be sent electronically for schools to use in a way that suits their own circumstances. It is a European initiative, but we will invite colleagues further afield too. We thought it is a way of expressing our awareness and internationality in the week of Philippine’s feast, she the “ woman who prayed always”.
Planning has started already for the next European Headteachers’ Conference which Ireland kindly agreed to host. It will be in Dublin from October 17th to 20th 2013.
