New Mission Statement

On the 26th January, the new Mission Statement, signed and approved by the Chapliancy team was approved by school governors at the governing body meeting. Our new Mission Statement encapsulates the mission of all who are part of the St Francis Xavier Community. Please see our new mission statement below: 

Our Mission Statement 

On Monday 12th December, the Chaplaincy team met with Mr Hoyes, our Head of School, to review the school's Mission Statement and to evaluate if it truly represents the Catholic mission of our school. Mr Hoyes explained that he has reviewed the Mission Statement with Fr Henry, our teachers, support staff and parents and now wants to capture the views of the pupils. 

The Chaplaincy Team had some marvellous suggestions including ensuring scripture, particularly the Gospels featured more prominently; ensuring the Mission Statement reflects how proud we are of our diverse community and ensuring that the language was always child friendly for our younger children.

The process of reviewing our School's Mission will continue in collaboration with all stakeholders. 

The Chaplaincy team helped Fr Henry to lead the Ash Wednesday liturgy for the whole school. They explained all about Ash Wednesday and read the bidding prayers that they had written during the Chaplaincy team meeting. 

The chaplaincy team put Jesus' words in action, ('Love one another, as I have loved you.' John 13: 34-35) through their sharing the love prayer station. They wrote a kind message on a heart and passed it on to someone in school. The receiver of the heart then went to the prayer room to write their own heart message to pass on.

The Chaplaincy Team have been working hard to keep their mission alive in school. Alongside their weekly chaplaincy meetings they have been setting up and helping lead messy church, encouraging children and staff to visit the new prayer station in the prayer room and written their own prayer for their prayer room independently. 

The chaplaincy team created the prayer station 'Pray for Peace' as they wanted to think about people who need our prayers all around the world. During our prayer meeting time, children can come into the quiet space of the prayer room and add their prayer for peace around the world. 

'Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.'

Romans 12:18 

Our chaplaincy team asked Fr Henry who would appreciate a special Christmas card this year. Father told us about his work with the local women's refuge community. Our team decided that they would like the women to know that they children of St Francis Xavier were thinking about them this Christmas and they were in their prayers. Father Henry kindly delivered the cards for us whilst the Chaplaincy team delivered more around the local community. 

They loved the thought of putting a smile on someone's face this Christmas and letting them know they are not alone. 

Our chaplaincy team did a wonderful job of both writing and reading the bidding prayers and readings for our special mass on Friday, focusing on the feast day of St Francis Xavier.

Our Chaplaincy Team were reflecting upon how we as a community can answer Jesus' call to help others during Advent. They decided they would like to lead a project at St Francis Xavier to help the homeless people in Doncaster. They have launched the project in assembly and are providing each class with a special box to fill with donations for the homeless this winter to help them to keep warm and feel clean.

Their inspiration for this project came from Matthew's Gospel: ‘When someone asks you for something, give it to him; when someone wants to borrow something, lend it to him.’ – Matthew 5:42

Our chaplaincy team were excited to gather the donations from each class ready for collection from our local Doncaster town centre homeless charity. They were overwhelmed with how kind our St Francis Xavier community had been with their donations.

The Chaplaincy Team focused on 'Hope' as the theme of their prayer station, creating a 'Tree of Hope.' 

The Chaplaincy Team supported the children and staff to use their healing heart prayer station to pray for and rememember their loved ones. 

Our Chaplaincy team were really helpful supporting Miss Langston in leading Messy Church. They especially supported the younger children with the different activities, explaining the purpose of the different activities.

Our Chaplaincy Team were excited to discuss their ideas for our new prayer room. They decided to create a new sign for the door using a stained glass window design.

Our team were eager to discuss ideas for our weekly prayer stations and are looking forward to creating their first station this week.

Our Chaplaincy Team enjoyed virtually meeting other Chaplaincy teams across the Catholic schools in Doncaster. They discussed the missions they have already completed this year and what they are hoping to achieve next. They look forward to working together for their first joint Advent project. 

Our team were interested to see how the children in each year group viewed our current in class and whole school prayer and liturgy and RE lessons to see if they could make any changes to make a difference. They wrote their own questions and then split up to ask the different year groups for opinions and ideas. They are reporting these findings back to staff in the upcoming weeks. 

For our Chaplaincy team's first meeting together. We discussed what it means to each of us to be a part of the team. We then decided upon our main aims for our team and how we are going to achieve excellence in God's love as a group. 

Our KS2 children were awarded their special gold cross badges in assembly, after being nominated by their teachers to be our Chaplaincy team. Mr Hoyes and Miss Hodby are looking forward to their first meeting next week to see how they will help lead others to continue a wonderful Catholic ethos for our school and community.