Our Mission Gallery

To celebrate the feast day of Lumen Christi on 2nd February, we joined together with the MAC schools to celebrate Mass. We prayed together and for each other during Mass and sang hymns as a community of schools. We thought about how we shine the light of Christ in our MAC.

During the MP's January meeting, the School Parliament discussed the importance of supporting people seeking safety. This links well with our British Value of the term, Respect, and our CST focus for the term Rights and Responsibilities.

Our MPs are now back in class spreading this message, and the children have made orange hearts for our school display.

We also talked about the government's fair new plan for refugees, which will be debated in Parliament this year. We have decided to make Valentine's cards for our MP, Laurence Turner, to share our feelings on love and fairness for all.

On Wednesday 20th November, a number of Year 5 and 6 pupils represented the school beautifully at St Chad's Cathedral, where Archbishop Bernard Longley led a Mass dedicated to Red Wednesday. Red Wednesday is an annual event to raise funds and awareness of the plight many Christians suffer around the globe, where they cannot practice their faith freely.
You can see the live streamed recording Lumen Christi produced for the day via this link: https://acnuk.org/event/acn-schools-redwednesday-livestream-and-masses/

St Brigid's prayer bags are ready to be shared with families once again, with information regarding the forthcoming Jubilee year- Pilgrims of Hope.
'A family that prays together, stays together'
Take time and stillness to be present with God alongside your children. We look forward to you sharing your prayers and reflections.

Children have the opportunity to pray the rosary with members of the Legion of Mary group from the parish. This week, Year 6 children prayed the Rosary focussing on the sorrowful mysteries.

Members of our School Parliament along with some Caritas Ambassadors delivered the shoeboxes to Crossway Church. The Church were so pleased with our donations which will make such a difference to communities across the world.

Today, we were thrilled to welcome Hana from Operation Christmas Child, who came to share the inspiring message behind the gift of a shoebox. It's such a heartwarming initiative that brings joy to children in need around the world. Each class will be getting involved this week by preparing our very own shoeboxes filled with treats, toys, and essentials. We’re excited to gather everything together and deliver our boxes to Crossways Church next week.

The Caritas Ambassadors spoke at the Parish Mass on 20th October about the Live Simply award. The children spoke to the parish about the award and how they helped the school to achieve it. We hope to have inspired the parish to apply for the award.

To celebrate the feast day of their class saint, St. John Henry Newman, year 6 pupils wore red to school.

Thank you to all of our families for your generous donations. These will be distributed within our local community by the SVP.

We joined together as a school community for our Stations of the Cross reflection. Each staff member read a different station and we reflected on the images for each station. 

Some of our Confirmandi helped Father Cecil to show our Church to some visiting pupils from St Lawrence School. The children spoke very eloquently about the altar, paschal candle, stations of the cross, font and Lady chapel. Well done children for representing our school so well.

To celebrate the feast of Lumen Christi, we joined schools from across the MAC for our prayer service. Each child received an electric votive candle to use at home. We wrote on a candle template how we can bring the light of Christ to to others. We gathered together to create a large candle.

On the first Monday of Advent, we wore purple to school and took part in an Advent Craft afternoon with our Faith Friends.

The children were invited to wear red to school to mark ‘Red Wednesday’. We took part in the livestream event by Mark 10 Mission which was broadcast from our Lumen Christi secondary school St Thomas Aquinas. St James, one of our primary schools also made an appearance. 

The Liturgy Leaders carried out an audit of our prayer tables to see if any resources were missing. The Year 4 Leaders then distributed them to the classrooms once they had been delivered.

Thank you for the generous donations of items for the SVP. These go a long way to help those in need at this time.

The children had a brilliant time with Rise Theatre learning about the importance of God's greatest gift - his Creation. They showed us the importance of taking care of our planet by reducing, reusing and recycling. We took part in activities in our classroom and gathered as a whole school community to watch Rise Theatre perform.

Father Cecil came to bless our classroom at the start of the new school year. He blessed each one with Holy Water.

Thank you to Barbara and Julie who came into school to present us with our School of Sanctuary certificate. Some of our Mission Team led us in a reflection taking us back over our journey

In September, Year 3 sent a book of condolence to the new King after the passing of his mother, Queen Elizabeth. 

Yesterday. we received a letter from King Charles thanking us for our messages.

The Liturgy Leaders have created a video to explain how to hold a Lenten liturgy at home using a prayer bag which each class will have the opportunity to take home. Inside the bag will be a QR code which will show the video and will explain how to use the resources and guide them in prayer. There is an opportunity for families to feedback on their experience using the journal inside the bag.

Our KS2 choir were an absolute credit to the school as they sang beautifully for the residents at Beeches Care Home. Everyone was in the Christmas spirit after they had sang. Thank you to Mrs Broad and Mrs Eagles who accompanied the children.

We were so pleased to invite Dan and Emily from One Life Music into school to lead a retreat about Creation and the important message from Pope Francis‘ letter ‘Laudato Si’. The whole school community thoroughly enjoyed coming together for a day of reflection about our wonderful world.

Thank you so much for all of the wonderfully generous harvest donations. These will be distributed to those in need in our local community.

On Monday 10th October, we joined together with schools in our diocese to take part in an online event. We joined in with praying and singing the Rosary to mark the relics of St Bernadette coming to our diocese. We enjoyed using our rosary beads to help us pray.

Thank you to all our wonderful parents and parishioners who joined us for our coffee and cake afternoon to raise money for Macmillan Cancer. A big thank you to our Head boy and girl and our deputy head boy and girl for all of their help in serving our parents. 

A huge thank you to Mr Hughes for completing our Mary Grotto. The children are very excited to see the beginning of our prayer garden.

Mr Hughes one of our SSC representatives and parishioners has kindly offered to create an altar for Mary for our new playground prayer area. Some of our Liturgy Leaders came to see it in its first stages.

We reflected on the Stations of the Cross with a special exhibition in the hall. Each year group, from Nursery to Year 6, came and prayed at each station thinking about Jesus' final journey. We listened to an account of what happened at each station before praying and being given a special task to complete. 

The children have begun planning our new prayer area in the playground. The children have been asked to design the space and submit their ideas to Mrs Goodes. We will be carrying out fundraising over the next academic year to try and develop a beautiful space for the children at St Brigid’s to use when talking to God.

Year 6 teamed up with St Thomas Aquinas year 7 children to look at and explore the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

They worked brilliantly together.

Our new Liturgy Leaders met for this first time this year. They were introduced to our new Collective Worship bags and went away with a monitoring form to monitor their classroom prayer table.

We gathered in our classes to watch the Go Green CAFOD assembly which taught us about our global responsibility in protecting the world.

KS2 gathered together for the first time in almost 18 months to celebrate Mary’s birthday and listen to Sunday’s Gospel. It was wonderful to be in the presence of God together.

Vocations Day

Sunday 25th April was Vocations Sunday. We marked the occasion by dressing up as what we want to be when we are older as a way of thinking about what God is calling us to be.

Last year Isabel T, who is now at secondary school, won a prayer writing competition ran by The Knights of St Columba. Today, her sister Anabel, received the prize on her behalf: a £30 cheque for Isabel and £200 for our school.

We want to say a massive well done to Isabel and thank you to Bernard and all The Knights of St Columba for the fantastic prize.

Feast of the Epiphany

We would usually attend Mass as a school community on this special feast day to remember when the three wise men brought gifts to baby Jesus. As things are different this year, we joined our friends in our Catholic primary schools at a special online Mass. The Mass was held at St. Chad's Cathedral and was led by Archbishop Bernard. It was lovely to see our children in school and those learning at home participating. 

A Christmas Message from Archbishop Bernard 

His Grace has recorded a short Christmas message for schools to be shared with the children, staff and all their families. It is a lovely, simple message that even the youngest children in our schools will be able to understand. The YouTube link is here: https://youtu.be/lYVkU9cYa38 a

Charity Fundraising

To mark Christmas jumper day, we came to school dressed in our Christmas jumpers to raise money for St Mary's Hospice. Thank you to all of our families who donated so generously.

Maisie in Year 4 along with her sisters Mollie and Lily wanted to organise an event to raise money for charity. They came up with the idea of dressing as an elf for the day and set up their own just giving page. All of the money received will be donated to the Alzheimer's Charity.

We are thrilled to report that Maisie has raised over £600 when the original target was £175! This is brilliant! Well done to Maisie and her family - we are so proud of your wonderful fundraising efforts! We know that a number of pupils and parents have been doing so many wonderful things to help other at this special time of year so that others have a special time too. Your wonderful efforts bring tears to our eyes - you are so kind, thoughtful and generous. THANK YOU AND WELL DONE!

Advent and Christmas Reflection

Unfortunately, this year we are unable to invite parents and families to join us for our annual Nativity productions and Carol Concert. However, we still wanted to remind you of the true meaning of Christmas and offer you the opportunity to reflect on the birth of our Lord, Jesus. The pupils from Year 1-6 participated in an Advent and Christmas reflection. Please visit the following link to watch our recording:

https://www.stbrigid.bham.sch.uk/autumn-term-september-2020/

You can also access the Nursery and Reception recordings on this page. 

Online Advent Reflection

We joined together with our friends in Catholic primary schools across our diocese to join Dan and Emily from One Life Music in their Advent Reflection. It was lovely to feel part of a community as we listened to some Advent hymns and thought about how we can prepare for Jesus' coming. 

Collecting for the Homeless

Please see below a message from the SVP Parish group:

A huge thank you to all of you who have donated chocolate bars, toiletries and hats, scarves and gloves for the homeless in Birmingham. These will be delivered to Basil’s next week and we know that they will be greatly appreciated.

Well done to the School Councillors and Mini Vinnies who worked together to organise making Christmas cards for the homeless. These were handed out with our donations. There were so many cards that we even had some left over for our parishioners who may have been spending Christmas alone.

Prayer Buddies

The pupils in Year 3 have each been allocated a prayer buddy from St Columba's. During this Sacramental year, we promise to pray for each other. We made prayer cards to ask God to look after our prayer buddies throughout the coming year.

Food Parcels

A big thank you to parents who organised food parcels to be collected. These have been handed out to those in need in our community.

Advent

To celebrate the start of the season of Advent, pupils were encouraged to come to school wearing an item of purple clothing. This is to remind us that the liturgical colour of Advent is purple. Each class participated in an Advent craft afternoon when we made items to be displayed on our class prayer tables.

National Youth Funday

On Friday pupils in KS2 joined with young people across England to celebrate National Youth Day.

The theme for this year was ‘Being Together.'

The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed distance from others and we may have felt an increasing distance between ourselves and God. However, in the midst of all these trials, God calls us to new opportunities and a life of hope. We look forward to a time where we can freely get together with family and friends. National Youth Funday is a fun way to celebrate with young people in schools. The day was hosted by youth ministry teams from across the country who lead us in prayer and fun activities as we unpacked the theme of ‘together’. We were delighted that Cardinal Vincent Nichols joined us to start our day in prayer with music led by Joe Wells of One Hope Project. 

Poppy Appeal

Pupils showed their support for the Poppy Appeal by giving money to charity and buying poppies and other items, All of the money raised will be going to charity. It is lovely to see so many children wearing their poppies with pride to remember our fallen soldiers.

Month of the Holy Souls

During the month of November, the children thought of somebody who they know who has died. We prayed to God asking Him to look after the souls of all our loved ones. We said the 'Eternal Rest' prayer each day in class.

Letters to those in isolation

Some of our children have been inspired to write letters to parishioners who may be spending time in isolation and those who may be lonely. We wrote to them to let them know that all of the children and staff at St Brigid's school are thinking of them and praying for them. 

Month of the Holy Rosary

Each class has been learning about the Rosary and why this is such a special prayer. Children were encouraged to bring in their own Rosary beads from home to help them to pray in their classes.

Saint of the Week

Please check our weekly newsletter for the Saint of the Week. Can you find out some more information about saints whose feast days are coming up soon?

Mini Vinnie Appointments

We are pleased to announce that our Mini Vinnies for 2020-2021 have been appointed. Please head to their dedicated website page to find out what they will be doing this year:

https://www.stbrigid.bham.sch.uk/mini-vinnies/

During ‘The Year of the Word’, the Liturgy leaders are holding a Bible study group during their lunchtime for the Year groups 2 to 6.

During ‘The Year of the Word’, the Liturgy leaders are holding a Bible study group during their lunchtime for the Year groups 2 to 6.

Sheila from Missio came into school to teach us about the work completed by Mission Together. We learnt how important it is to try and help and pray for other children all over the world.

Mrs Bentley from STACS came to teach KS2 choir songs for the Lumen Christi Carol Concert on Wednesday 18^th December.

The Mini Vinnies gathered together to write some ‘Postcards of Happiness’ to send to the people at Beeches Care Home in Northfield. We hope that when they receive them it will put a smile on their face. Thank you to Abel’s Father who donated the postcards which he bought from the Holy Land.

Year 3 have been working extremely hard getting ready for their First Holy Communion. On Friday 17^th May, the children met with Father Cecil and tried the unconsecrated bread in preparation for receiving the sacrament. On Saturday 18^th May, the children came together with their families and received Jesus for the first time. Congratulations children!

On Tuesday 26^th February, the new Mini Vinnies were given their badges and certificates in a ceremony during our Whole School Mass. Mrs Hodgkinson our Chair of Governors and our SVP representative for the parish gave out the awards. Congratulations children. We cannot wait for you to ‘turn concern into action’.