Catholic Life
The Catholic Life of a school is about an educational endeavour centred on the person of Christ. Staff work together in many ways to ensure that the Catholic identity and ethos of St Polycarp's School is explicit to the whole community and beyond. These areas of school life all contribute to that endeavour through the work of key staff members:
| AREA | STAFF MEMBER |
|---|---|
| Mission Statement | Mrs Best and Mrs Walker |
| School Motto | Mrs Walker |
| Spiritual Council | Mrs Walker |
| One World Council | Mrs Peneda |
| School Council | Mr Peebles |
| Eco Council | Miss Bellapaisiotou |
| Class Charities | Mrs Walker |
| Community Links (Music) | Mrs Ridgeon |
| St Joan of Arc Parish Links | Mrs Worley |
| Signposts and Foodbank Links | Mrs Walker |
| RE Visitors / Visits | Mrs Walker |
| Website and Polygraph News | Mrs Walker |
Spiritual Council
The Spiritual Council comprises of two representatives from each class from years 2 to 6. This group of children focus on developing the spiritual life of the school. They meet to evaluate the collective worship delivered by the head teacher, class teachers or children. In addition, they reflect on the liturgical season and ways in which the school can develop its collective worship and prayer life. The children feed their ideas back to their class and in turn gather suggestions and ideas for their next meeting.
Mrs Walker is the teacher responsible for this committee.
Charities
Harvest Food Collection – October 2023
A huge thank you to all of you who contributed towards our harvest collection for Farnham Foodbank. In total 415 kilograms of food were donated, making a huge difference to those families in our local community who are in need.
Click for the Tanzania Charity Newsletter
Class Charities
Year Group |
Charity |
Website Link |
| Reception | Children in Need |
|
| Year 1 | Helen Arkell Charity |
|
| Year 2 | Winston's Wish |  |
| Year 3 | Pending | |
| Year 4 | Sean Devereux Children's Fund |
|
| Year 5 | Bee-Lieve |
|
| Year 6 | Phyllis Tuckwell |
|
| Whole School Charities | Cafod |
|
| Walser’s Tanzanian Charity |
|
|
| Royal British Legion |
|
|
| Farnham Food Bank |
|
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| Musical Charities | Classes sing carols for residents at various venues |
One World
One World Committee
Each class elects one child to represent them as part of the 'One World' team. This committee look at helping those less fortunate in the world. The projects vary depending on need. The committee members have the task of keeping the rest of the school informed and report to their classes after meetings. A display board is kept informing the rest of the school about the work organised by the committee.
Mrs Peneda is the teacher responsible for this committee.
Prayer
Dear Lord,
We thank-you for the loving family of St Polycarp’s.
We know how lucky we are.
Thank- you for the people of the world,
People who are so different, yet dependent on each other.
Help us to help others that are not as fortunate as us.
Guide our One World Committee that we
May follow in the footsteps of Jesus.
AMEN
CAFOD Lunch
The children raise money and hold events for CAFOD. They annually help out at the St. Joan’s Parish CAFOD soup lunch. They have adapted the CAFOD prayer for East Africa for the young children of St. Polycarp’s.
Ihemi Primary School in Tanzania
We have established a link with Ihemi Primary School in Tanzania.
Originally the link was created with the help of St. Joan of Arc’s, ArcAid Committee. Our link is maintained through the Walser Tanzania Charity. The Walsers were former parishioners of St. Joan of Arc and pupils of St. Polycarp’s.
Their charity’s main objectives are to: support children so that they can attend school and college, improve facilities and resources in local schools and provide funding for projects to improve the lives of those in the Ifunda community.
The children raise money to sponsor annually the education and well - being of two children. The first is Edina Mvela, a 15 year old girl who has now progressed from Ihemi Primary onto secondary school. The second is Amrike Nyalusi, a 13 year old boy who is currently at Ihemi Primary School.
The children regularly correspond with Amrike sending letters and pictures. The next project is to make a video of life at our school to send with our charity partners.
We recently held our One World Mufti Day where the children brought in £2 to dress in the colours of the Tanzanian flag. In addition to this they were asked to donate one of their toys (no larger than the size of their palm) to be taken by the Walsers to Ihemi on their next trip.
In addition to this, over the years the children have provided: shoes, spectacles, sports clothes, sporting equipment, educational resources and wind up solar lamps. They have also helped fund toilets for the school and a computer centre for the older children of the area.
Once a year representatives from the charity visit our school and hold an assembly updating the children on the work being done at the school and in the local area to support the families.
Former St. Polycarp’s pupils, are still raising money for Ihemi School, having been at secondary school for many years. Some of our past students hope to visit the school in the future during gap years.
Additional Projects
The children have said prayers and held events to raise funds to:
- help St. Joan’s Youth Group, former pupils, go to World Youth Days in both Brazil and Poland. The former students then come in and talk to our children about their experience, bringing artefacts and showing photos to show.
- help the street children in Brazil where former pupils spent a week helping a charity in Brazil
- help past students at All Hallows School go to Lourdes on Pilgrimages.
- provide SolarPower at The Good Shepherd’s Convent in Mankulam, Sri Lanka
- help UNICEF
- help people effected by the Nepalese Earthquake
- help families effected by famine in East Africa
- The children also organise collections of items such as:
- shoes for Karibu Nyumbani orphanage for former pupils to take out who spent a month volunteering at the orphanage
- books for Nyaagi Primary School , Nairobi, Kenya for another former pupil to take out when again volunteering
- spectacles for the people of Ifunda, Tanzania
- solar lamps for the families of the children at the Ihemi school
