Chaplaincy

Chaplaincy is part of the beating heart of our school, striving to continually grow the Catholic Life of Holy Cross and opportunities for all students to engage spiritually. Mrs Ryan and Ms Jimenes are our Lay School Chaplains and coordinate a wide range of chaplaincy provision, which fits in with the school mission as a whole. We also have an active student chaplaincy team, with representatives across the year groups who support and promote chaplaincy throughout the year, creatively sharing faith and prayer with their peers. The vision of chaplaincy at our school is “to support the Catholic life of the school by ever-increasing student participation which aids them to deepen their spiritual life”. We have a beautiful school chapel, “Chapel of the Resurrection” that is open every day and regularly visited by students and staff alike for reflection, personal and group prayer.

“The dedicated and skilled chaplaincy team work collaboratively to create consistently high-quality prayer and liturgy experiences for the whole school community.”  Catholic Inspection Report, 2024

Ignite Team

Our Lay School Chaplains oversee an established Student Chaplaincy Team, Ignite, which students have the opportunity to join from Year 7 onwards. The team meets every Friday, and plays an important role in school, with the student members able to input ideas & creativity into chaplaincy activities and events, grow their leadership skills and promote creative ways of exploring faith to their peers. The team organises special events during Advent, Lent, May, the month of Mary and also runs a stall at the annual summer fete! 

“The school has developed a group of young chaplaincy leaders known as the ‘Ignite’ team, who are enthusiastic in their preparation of creative prayer and liturgy times. Students appreciate the opportunities to work as part of the chaplaincy team and value the experience this gives them to develop their understanding of how prayer helps them in their daily lives.”  Catholic Inspection Report, 2024

Service

There are other various ways in which our students can serve the school. Firstly, through our programme of Social Justice Ambassadors (linked to our work on Catholic Social Teaching and our Romero Award journey). Students have opportunities to join our flourishing altar servers team (coordinated by one of our Key Stage 4 students), who serve at school masses throughout the year, and sixth formers can be trained as Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion. These roles allow our older students to be excellent role models for the younger students. 

We are active members of our local “chaplaincy hub”, collaborating with other local Catholic schools to support, share resources and organise an annual retreat day for our student chaplaincy teams.