Catholic Life and Mission

At St Marie's, our vision is to support our children to attain a deeper knowledge and spiritual understanding of their Catholic faith. We guide, support and prepare children to be ambassadors of Christ within their daily lives through the teachings of Jesus, worship, prayer and creating enjoyment in meaningful spiritual encounters with Christ. 

The teaching of Religious Education is at the heart of everything we do at St Marie's, and helps us to fulfil our mission to love, live and learn united with Jesus. As a Catholic school we aim to educate the whole child, and our ethos is inseparable from the curriculum. Religious Education is taught through lessons using our Birmingham Diocesan programme 'Learning and Growing as the People of God' and also through celebrations, prayer and everyday experiences in school, in addition to exploring our mission in all curricular subjects.

Mass

The children attend Mass with the parish a minimum of half termly in year groups. Additionally, we celebrate together at the beginning of each term and on feast days throughout the year. Parents and parishioners are invited to join all our Masses. 

Sacraments of First Holy Communion and Reconciliation

Children begin their preparation for First Holy Communion and Confession when during Year Three. In school lessons will take place in January to prepare children for their First Confession in March and their First Holy Communion in May. See more information on this under the 'Sacramental Programme' tab.

Prayers

Prayer is a special part of our day. Children pray at various times during the school day including before and after lunch, and morning and end of day prayers. In addition to this, children experience different prayers and ways to pray in weekly class prayer and whole school assemblies. Each of our classes, are introduced and learn a set of prayers as they begin each year group, to widen their knowledge. We love that our children take a role in leading prayer and acts of Collective Worship right from Reception. 

As a school, we provide meaningful opportunities to grow in the faith through the nurturing of the Gospel's Virtues and Values. Our children are passionate to live out Christs' teachings within the community. These Virtues and Values are indivually explored and celebrated each half term throughout the school year. At St Marie's children are celebrated during a weekly mission assembly when they have demonstrated growth.

Pupils in a school in the Archdiocese of Birmingham are growing to be:

• Grateful for their own gifts, for the gifts of other people and for the blessings of each day; and generous with their gifts, now and in the future.
• Attentive to their experience and to their vocation; and discerning about the choices they make and the effects of those choices.
• Compassionate towards others near and far, especially the less fortunate; and loving by their just actions and forgiving words.
• Faith-filled in their beliefs and hopeful for the future.
• Eloquent and truthful in what they of themselves, the relations between people and the world.
• Learned, finding God in all things; and wise in the ways they use their learning for the common good.
• Curious about everything and active in their engagement with the world, changing what they can for the better.
• Intentional in the way they live and use the resources of the earth, and prophetic in the example they set to others.

Fundamental British Values

How do we promote British Values at St Marie's?

The DfE have stated the need "to create and enforce a clear and rigorous expectation on all schools to promote the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs."

The Government set out its definition of British values in the 2011 Prevent Strategy, and these values were  reiterated in 2014. At St Marie's these values are reinforced regularly. 

At St. Marie’s, each class has a dedicated saint. A saint is a person who is believed to be especially close to God. God gave these people special graces so that they could do special things. Some saints were prophets, or messengers of God. Others had the ability to heal. God knew these people, like He knows us. He gave these people extraordinary gifts because he was confident they would do His Will. As a school, we will learn about the work of God’s chosen friends, talk to them in prayer and take inspiration from them.

Nursery - Our Lady

Reception  - Our Lady

Year 1  - St Martin de Porres & St Peter

Year 2 - St Augustine & St Basil

Year 3  - St Francis of Assisi & St Josephine Bakhita

Year 4 - St Angela & St Chad

Year 5 - St Anthony & St Kateri Tekakwitha

Year 6 - St Barnabus & St John

Sacrament of Reconciliation

This is the Sacrament of forgiveness, of God’s loving mercy and of conversion. As with the other sacraments it was instituted by Jesus Christ himself. It was on Easter Sunday when Christ first appeared to the Apostles after his Resurrection. Breathing on them, he said: “Receive the Holy Spirit. For those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sins you retain, they are retained”.

We are all sinners and struggle in the pursuit of holiness. God gave us all free will to make our own choices and we often fail to follow his teachings or even to recognise our own sinfulness. Each time we sin, we deprive ourselves of God’s grace and distance ourselves from his love, but we can be reconciled to him by being truly sorry and asking for his forgiveness. We do this by confessing our sins to a priest who is, in this sacrament, “in persona Christi” (in the person of Christ). Jesus throughout his ministry welcomed sinners who were truly penitent. It is God, through the priest, who will forgive us and in so doing grace will be restored to our souls and we can once again try to resist sin.

Catholics as a minimum should go to confession once a year, especially during Lent as part of their spiritual preparation for Easter. The Church, however, recommends that they should receive the sacrament regularly and willingly to embrace it as a gift from a loving God. The more often a sinner examines his own conscience, the more discerning he becomes and the more likely, with the grace of the sacrament and the advice from the priest, he will be able to conquer the roots or habit of sin.

It is perfectly normal not to find it easy to confess sins. To make a good confession time needs to be taken to make a thorough examination of conscience beforehand, maybe at home or in the quiet of the church. Don’t hold anything back – sometimes this is for fear of what the priest may think. A priest either through his own experience in the confessional or during his seminary training will be able to handle pretty much anything and will have heard most things many times before. A priest wants nothing more than to be able to heal the breach between a penitent and God.

Sacrament of First Holy Communion

The Parish of St Marie's and St Marie's Primary School enjoy a close working partnership which ensures children are able to grow steadily in their faith. Masses for each school year are held on a regular basis in St Marie's church. In the Archdiocese of Birmingham preparation for First Holy Communion is undertaken in School within the RE curriculum. In Year 3, children are prepared for both the sacrament of Reconciliation and for the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. Children will be taught about their relationship with God, with the Church and with the wider faith community.

It is important, therefore, that there is a family commitment to this programme and regularly attending Sunday Mass will be a vital part of the child’s journey. Preparation for these sacraments will be a special time in their spiritual development.

Children will make their First Holy Communion at St Marie's Church. The children will have learnt that Catholics believe that the Holy Eucharist is Christ’s Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, truly present in the Blessed Sacrament (the consecrated host and wine). It is the source and summit of our Faith; there is no more precious gift than to receive Jesus himself in the Holy Eucharist.

Sacrament of Confirmation

Confirmation is a Catholic Sacrament of mature Christian commitment and a deepening of baptismal gifts. It is one of the three Sacraments of Initiation for Catholics. It is most often associated with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The Sacrament of Confirmation confers special graces of the Holy Spirit upon the person being confirmed, just as such graces were granted to the Apostles on Pentecost. Like Baptism, therefore, it can only be performed once, and Confirmation increases and deepens all of the graces granted at Baptism.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church lists five effects of Confirmation:

• it roots us more deeply in the divine filiation [as sons of God] which makes us cry, “Abba! Father!”;
• it unites us more firmly to Christ;
• it increases the gifts of the Holy Spirit in us;
• it renders our bond with the Church more perfect;
• it gives us a special strength of the Holy Spirit to spread and defend the faith by word and action as true witnesses of Christ, to confess the name of Christ boldly, and never to be ashamed of the Cross.