“Schools are privileged places of personal development” – Pope Francis
We believe that students have the opportunity to experience faith beyond the classroom and have the opportunity to grow spiritually and morally. As such, we offer a range of trips and enrichment opportunities for students to get involved with. This compliments our extensive guest speaker programme allowing students to grow in understanding of faith and inspire them to grow deeply along their own faith paths.
Every year we take students to the Newcastle Sikh Gurdwara to experience the Sikh faith first hand and to have the opportunity to serve in the Sikh Langar. In doing so, students have the opportunity to give back to the Sikh community and serve others, thus putting their faith into action.
Every two years we run a pilgrimage to CYMFED FLAME festival at Wembley in London. FLAME festival draws together 10,000 young people across the United Kingdom and Europe to celebrate our Catholic Faith. Students have the opportunity to travel together with other diocesan secondary schools by coach and engage in prayer, fellowship, inspiring faith speakers such as Bear Gryls, hear internationally acclaimed faith musicians like Matt Redman and Guvna B and engage in Collective Worship such as Silent Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
Students in KS3/4 have the opportunity to attend the Peter Vardy conference held at a fellow diocesan school OLSB and attend their Peace, Forgiveness and Reconciliation conference. These conferences inspire students with moving testimonies from incredible guest speakers such as Richard Moore and Jo Berry.
Sixth Form students also have the opportunity to attend visits such as to see the New Testament Codex at St. Paul’s in Jarrow to support their New Testament Theology course at A-Level.
In addition to these trips we also have a great enrichment offer which includes:
In-school competitions such as the Sixth Form BBC Apprentice style stewardship competition inspired by St. Francis of Assisi for the Jubilee Year of St. Francis of Assisi. This competition requires CORE RE students the chance to come together and engage in theological creativity by creating their own eco-friendly business and designing an invention that will help people be better stewards of the environment.
Students in Year 10 have the opportunity to take part in our TOWIE competition (The Only Way is Ethics) in which they can compete against one another in pairs or threes to debate ethical issues in the contemporary world. These competitions enhance their GCSE studies and their understanding of ethical issues in modern day society.
