Oaklands Chaplaincy has a strong and nurturing connection with our partner Catholic primary schools. Our dedicated Chaplains make regular visits to these schools, engaging with their students and providing valuable support to the staff in preparing for Mass, class worship, and retreat days.
In addition, our Student Leaders, work closely with the Chaplaincy team, to support in organising primary school worship services. This hands-on involvement not only helps them develop essential leadership skills but also enables them to gain valuable experience in leading others in prayer.
We also run Catholic Social Teaching (CST) Ambassador events for Year 5 and 6 students from our feeder Catholic primary schools. During these events, primary school students are supported by Oaklands Student Leaders to share the ways their schools already enact the principles of CST and discover new ideas that they are keen to take back to their schools and try to implement. These small groups learned over the course of the day about what the principles of CST are; who Oscar Romero is; and how to create and lead their own worship.
Our ultimate goal is to help students truly understand the significance of our shared rituals so that worship becomes a deeply meaningful and personal experience for each of them.
This strong connection with the primary schools also serves to ease pupils’ transition to secondary school, as they will already be familiar with our chaplains. Furthermore, primary school retreats to the Chapel provide students with the chance to become acquainted with the school grounds and our beautiful sacred space, which is always open for prayer and reflection.
