The St Augustine of Canterbury School

Believing, Belonging, Becoming through Christ

St Augustine's Chaplaincy

The Chaplaincy is an essential part of Christian school and represents the school's founding churches, with Mrs Liz Lewis as Anglican Chaplain and Father Bob Rainbow as Catholic Chaplain (both part time).

As chaplains, we run many activities that help students and staff to express their Christian faith, while at the same time supporting anyone of any faith or none, in any difficulty they feel they face, in or out of school.

We have plenty of cause to be thankful. The past year started with our organising excellent visits of Year 7 to Cleeve Abbey's impressive ruins near Watchet and to the very much alive contemporary abbey of Buckfast in Devon with Fr. Bob and Liz, and to Wells Cathedral with Liz. As chaplains we also led groups to visit our local churches of St. Teresa's RC. and St. Peter's C of E. The Christmas school carol service, held again by courtesy of St George's RC church, was an exceptional event for the school chior and a true "swansong" success for our departing popular music teazcher, Kath Morrison.

In the new year Fr. Bob accompanied Patrick Brown of the Catholic aid agency, CAFOD, on year 10 class visit, while Fr. Bob also showed slides of pilgrimages he had made, to Mrs Gibbs' RE class. June 29th, the feast-day for saints Peter and Paul was marked by an "Agape" meal celebrated by Liz, at which bread was broken and shared to illustrate what Jesus did for us. It was unfortunate Fr Bob's hope to offer a Catholic Mass in conjunction with this was scuppered by his being blocked on the motorway on his way in!

In the midst of all the special events, the regular chaplaincy activities continue- the students' prayer-group at Break-time on Mondays, the staff prayer on Wednesdays before school (more support always welcomed!) and the ever-popular Friday lunchtime Christian Union, for which space in the Chaplaincy room is now very severely restricted and we have moved to using the library! The latter has seen a wide range of activities, including visits by outsiders to animate the students. We also lead many of the school Acts of Worship, inculding some of the Fridays whole-school worships.

The final big chaplaincy-based event of the past year saw Bishop Declan Lang come down from Clifton for a unique "loaves and fishes" day with children from several of our feeder primary schools. The Year 5 children had prepared on an environmental theme in many ways. Some brought huge trees made entirely from recycled materials to mount on stage. Others brought shoals of fish again from recycled sources, while others did marvellous dances and dramas on the theme. A set of "workshops" filled part of the day, the children circulating round activities led by our school staff. It has to be said that day was a huge success, though we had been sorry that some invited schools had not been able to attend. We are particularly indebted to clifton's Ann Fowler for the initial idea of the day and support at the event. It is our prayer it will flag up St. Augustine's as an option for these children's secondary education.

Liz Lewis (Anglician Chaplain)
Fr. Bob Rainbow (Catholic Chaplain)

Chaplaincy Report:

Liz Lewis and Father Bob, as school chaplains, have continued to preside over many activities during the past period.

The school year started with Year 7 visits to both the ruined but largely extant Cleeve Abbey near Williton, and Buckfast's very much living abbey in Devon. A lot was learnt about the life of monks, both in the past and today.

Visits to local churches continue to be part of the curriculum for years 7 and 8, seeing St. Peter's Church of England church and St. Teresa's Catholic church, both a short walk away in Priorswood.

The Christian Union is being well supported up in the chaplaincy room each Friday lunchtime, with sandwiches eaten together before a range of Christian-based activities. A highlight was the visit by staff from the Good News Christian bookshop in East Reach (near the Esso garage) who had a gift of entertaining as well as showing us lots of fascinating books and even letting us take away a few souvenirs!

We are now approaching the church season of Lent, starting with Ash Wednesday on 21^st February (during half-term!) We can use it as a way of preparing ourselves spiritually for the greatest Christian feast, which isn't Christmas (often hyped far too much by commercial interests) but Easter- the memorial of Jesus' extraordinary rising from the dead. That is the whole basis of the Christian faith!

To help get you in the mood, why not try this seasonal quiz, research by Father Bob? You'll need to have your bible at hand.

A puzzle for the Lent period:

A. The number of letters in the town Joseph came from. [Luke 23:51]

B. The number of criminals crucified with Jesus. [Luke 23:32]

C. Judas betrayed Jesus with this - how many letters does it have? [Luke 22:48]

D. How many letters in the name of the Jewish king who judged Jesus? [Luke 23:7]

E. How many miles is Emmaus from Jerusalem? [Luke 24:13]

F. The number of times Peter denied Jesus. [Luke 22:61]

G. The day of the week when the women visited Jesus' tomb. [Luke 23:26]

H. The number of letters in the place Simon came from. [Luke 23:26]

I. The number of letters in the name of the prisoner released instead of Jesus.

[Luke 23:18]

(With acknowledgements to Redemptorists Publications' "Lent Extra.")

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