We are here to help everyone to open their hearts to Jesus to encourage them to be the best that they can be. 

We are the prayer leaders in school and we love helping everyone get closer to God. We lead prayers, lunchtime clubs and organise special events in school that helps everyone spend time with God.

2024 - Year of Prayer 2025 Pilgrims of Hope Jubilee Year

 2025 is the year of the “Pilgrims of Hope” Jubilee. A Jubilee year only happens every 25 years!

To prepare for such a special event, Pope Francis has declared 2024 as a Year of Prayer. 

During this year, we are encouraged to pray ourselves and help others pray as well. We are thinking about how and why we pray and how it can impact on our lives.

We will be launching the jubilee year in school in February and cannot wait to share all our exciting news and events with you!

Passing the Anchor to St Bede's

Bishop John blessed the anchor, a symbol of the Jubilee Year and then it began a journey around every school within our Diocese. On Monday 24th March it was our great privilege to act as Pilgrims of Hope and pass the Anchor onto St Bede's. We would like to say a huge thankyou to the school for their hospitality and for creating an opportunity for us to join together to grow in faith.  

Receiving the Anchor from St Paul's

Bishop John blessed the anchor, a symbol of the Jubilee Year and then it began a journey around every school in our diocese, within the geographic area of the Academy Trusts. On Wednesday 19th March it was passed to our school from St Paul's Primary School Blackburn.  We celebrated as two schools listening to the Word of God, praying and singing together.  We thank  the children and staff for visiting and making the occasion so special.  We will enjoy having the anchor in school and will pass it on to St Bede's high school Blackburn.

Launching the 'Jubilee Year of Hope'

We led a whole school Celebration of the Word to launch the Jubilee Year at OLPS! A 

The Jubilee Year, launched by the Pope on Christmas Eve, calls on us to grow closer to God and spread His love to others, offering hope to the world. We've got a packed schedule of exciting events planned to make a real difference and bring hope to others during this special year.

Today we held a non-uniform and collected CAFOD donations.  We are also taking part in the Lenten Walk and have already made a positive impact on our local environment through our litter-picking efforts. We are looking forward to continuing our support of the Jubilee Year and using our faith to make a difference in the world!

Advent - Crib Service

Advent is a time of preparing. A time when we try to open our hearts and minds to God so that we can prepare for the birth of Jesus.

Friends and followers of Jesus gather round cribs to pray, reflect and get ready to celebrate the birth of Jesus. We gathered around our crib in school to do the same and we led the prayers at our crib service. 

We led the prayers in the crib service.

Dear Jesus, you came into our world to teach us how to love. Bless our homes and help them to be places where we learn to do the same. We pray to the Lord. 

Dear Jesus, you came into our world to teach us how to live together. Bless our schools, help them to be places where we learn to do the same. We pray to the Lord.

Dear Jesus, you came into our world to teach us how to pray. Bless our priest and our parish, so that they might help us all to grow in faith. We pray to the Lord.

Dear Jesus, you came into our world to teach us how to care for God’s worldwide family. Bless all your children around the world, help us to see one another as brothers and sisters. We pray to the Lord. 

November - the month of Remembrance.

November is the month in which we pray for departed Holy Souls and celebrate Remembrance Sunday. If you would like us to remember your loved ones this November, please come and hang a button on our remembrance tree in school and we will keep your loved ones in our prayers each day in school. We will be on the playground some mornings and evenings or just pop into the office area where the tree will remain for the rest of the month.

Candlelight vigil 

We invited our families over to church to light a candle for someone they would like us to remember in our prayers. What a special evening. 

Remembrance

The Prayer Leaders were joined by the Caritas Ambassadors to lead the whole school in a special remembrance service. The children created a beautiful atmosphere and focal point. The whole school joined in with the 'We Remember Them' litany and stood respectfully for two minutes of silence. 

Prayer Group

Each Wednesday we lead a prayer group at lunchtime. We design the focal point, the prayer and the activity around the Gospel.

This week's theme was Pray, Fast, Give

We thought about how Lent is a time when God calls us to make a special effort – perhaps to give something up or to do something loving and good.

Last week we thought about how we could pray more during Lent.

This week we thought about how we could Give to others during Lent.

This week we made thankyou cards for the teachers. This little act of giving made lots of the teachers smile in school and made their day brighter! 

This Week's theme this week was Temptation in the Desert.

In this week’s Gospel we heard about Jesus’ temptation in the desert. He spent 40 days there with the Devil coming to tempt him 3 times. Jesus was hungry and tired but would not give in to temptation – he knew God loves him and God would give him the strength to stay on the right path.

We thought about how, during Lent we are asked to Pray, Fast , Give to prepare for the events of Holy Week. We made prayer cubes to help us spend a few more minutes each day speaking to God.

This week's theme was Good News!

The Gospel this week reminded us that Jesus brings Good News to everyone.

He entered the temple, was filled with the Holy Spirit and spread the Good News. He read out loud: “The spirit of the Lord has been given to me. He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to heal the broken hearted and set free all those who are oppressed.”

We made Good News cards to give to people we love or to those we don't know that well to spread God's love to everyone. 

This week's theme was Red Wednesday

We sang songs, prayed and wrote prayers for all of the Christians who are persecuted because of their faith. We prayed for peace and for them to be safe. The crosses we made are broken but still strong - just as those who are persecuted are still strong in their faith.

This week is kindness week. We pray that the kindness we are showing to each other, our school family, spreads to the rest of the world.  

Amen

#Red Wednesday

We held a whole school prayer service and tied red ribbons to the school gate to raise awareness of the persecution people face just because of their faith. 

This week's theme was Faithfulness.

Someone who is faithful keeps their promises and never lets others down

Everybody wants a faithful friend and Jesus promises to be ours. In the Gospel, Jesus is encouraging the disciples (and us too) to be faithful to him. The faithful promises of Jesus will never pass away – God’s love for us will last forever.

We thought of people in our lives as well as Jesus who are faithful and wrote them thank you cards.

Our theme this week was remembrance. We shared a prayer and made poppies to remember loved ones or to give to someone who may be missing a loved one.