Tuesday's Staff Meeting - Feedback

As was discussed in our brief meeting last week, here is the break down of who and what we are presenting on Wednesday. Any problems, just let me know!
Sarah

• Margaret and Kate – Opening staff meeting in prayer.
• Sarah – Opening and intro – Initial coming together and broad range of ideas on what our ‘focus’ was to be. How our first few sessions were defining prayer and sharing our ideas and/or experiences of prayer (took us 3-4 sessions). This included understanding and learning how to use our Blog page. Moved to student outcome based focus – providing staff with a framework to use at the completion of a unit of RE work. Professionally open with one another, reflective, flexible, approachable, open and honest, greater range of resources – we are more knowledgeable as a group.
• Phil – Actual direction we ended up taking
• Kate – student survey/s
• Margaret – Blog and prayer folder
• Mel – Proforma and student survey of Mission prayer used
• Sarah - Powerpoint of responses to Mission prayer – linking to student outcomes
• Phil – Where to now? Ideas for us as a group, e.g. how we can organise music resources and opening up to staff for forum and/or feedback.

Class Prayer Sample (Mission for Primary)

Here is the prayer celebration we nutted out for the Mission unit (primary).

1) Focusing Activity

Students carry a candle to a central position. The candle is raised and the student proclaims:

“Listen! You who have ears to hear. This is what your God asks of you. Only this! Act justly! Love tenderly and walk humbly with your God.”

“Listen to your God; act with justice! Love with tenderness and compassion, walk humbly with those who walk alone.”

Discuss what it is that God calls each of us to do.
What does it mean to be called by God?
Who does God call and for what purpose?

2) Song (optional)

Monica Brown “Listen”.

3) Scripture

Luke 4:16-22. Good news rap.

Good news for one, Good news for all, God’s good news is a good news call!
The lame will walk and the blind will see, The sick are healed and prisoners roam free.

Good news for one, Good news for all, God’s good news is a good news call!
The death will hear and the dead come to life, all who suffer will be free for strife!

Good news for one, Good news for all, God’s good news is a good news call!
God is good and God is great! God for me is just first rate!

Good news for one, Good news for all! God’s good news is a good news call!


4) Reflection (Homily)
View a Mission DVD.

5) Prayers of Intercession

Student written prayers prepared prior to prayer. Draw from discussions throughout the unit.

6) Dismissal Activity
Students come forward and offer bottles for Turasai.

Class Prayer Proforma

Class Prayer Proforma


1) Focusing Activity

Set the scene for reverent prayer followed by a recalling or retelling of a story or life experience.

Suggested activities: Telling a story, reading a book, pictures, photo’s, artwork, photo language cards etc.

2) Song (optional)


3) Scripture

Suggested activities: Reader’s theatre, role play, echo mimes, liquid pictures, raps, meditation etc.

4) Reflection (Homily)

Suggested Activities: Meditation, journal, dialogue with peers, teacher led discussion, Powerpoint reflection, dance/movement, photo language cards etc.

5) Prayers of Intercession

Suggested activities: Silent personal intercessions, impromptu prayers, student led prayers.

6) Dismissal Activity

Suggested activities: Creating artworks, personal responses, craft, silence, song etc.

The Journey Continues

After reading Margaret's comment on how are we going to meet outcomes etc our groups focus has now slightly changed. Whilst still incorporating Mel's ideas into extending prayer through class liturgies we have decided to look at our RE units and write a prayer which relates to one for each stage/grade that could be used in class. Through further discussions we found that it is often difficult to find the story or song suggested in the sample pathways so by writing our own we hope:
* our own skills in writing prayers are extended.
* to write prayers that include resources readily available here at school so that other staff are more inclined to implement prayer through their unit (as a focus activity / closing activity etc).
* children are engaged in prayer in a variety of ways.

As I am quite new at writing prayers I was very happy to here that others were not feeling overly confident as well, so to support one another we decided to write one prayer together so that input can be added along the way and we have the chance to experiment with the prayer format that we also came up with.

One of my concerns was that other teachers may not like implementing prayers that others have written as they may not be meaningful to their children but again through discussion the point was made that as teachers we alter activities all the time to meet the needs of own individual children but it is still great to have ideas to work off. This is what we hope to provide.

This experience also provides us with TIME which is so hard to come by to actually look through the many different books that our school has which I wasn't aware of and to look at one anothers own individual resources for ideas. I am getting great ideas not only for prayers suitable to our units but prayers that would be great to implement in my morning class prayer sessions.

Wish us luck!!

Kate

What is Prayer?

That is what I asked the children in 3 Blue following noon prayer last week. The children were then told to record their answer in their prayer books. While some have said very similar things I have chosen to include the whole class. These are the replies:

I think prayer is asking God to do something to help people and yourself.

I think prayer is a time to think of God

I think prayer is when you can talk to God and tell him your feelings and think about people who are sick or died. It is a time to think of God and your dreams.

I think prayer is when you speak to God Jesus and Mary

It is something to obey the Lord. It is something to help you do everything even you can (pray) when you are playing playstation then you ask god to help you get past all the hard levels. Prayer is like a time machine

I think prayer is a time to talk to God.

I think prayer is a time to relax and calm yourself down and talk to God.

I think prayer is a time to talk to God, be calm and be quiet

I think prayer is a peaceful place and a thing you can do, it calms you down when you are scared, it cheers you up when you are sad. It is a lovely thing to do.

I think prayer is a way of life.

I think prayer is very a good thing. When you pray for something only some of it will happen. If I say please make everyone unsick, it will happen. If I say I want a bike it will not happen.

I think prayer is when you make the sign of the cross it is a way of saying Jesus, God or Mary I want to talk to you and you tell them exactly what you want to say then when you say Amen it is a way of saying Jesus God or Mary I have finished talking to you and you can go and listen to other people’s great news. It is hard but I put it in my own words and it is a wonderful thing to do. It is like going into the past and talking about it to Jesus God or Mary.

I think prayer is a quiet place to see Jesus.

I think prayer is where you speak to Jesus or God if you’re worried, sad, even if you want to know your family members up in heaven. Prayer is where you can sometimes speak to your family members who have died. Prayer is where you can be silent and just be quiet.

I think prayer is asking God to look after you when you are sick or in hospital. I think it shows love and peace to you and others like family and friends.

I think prayer is a quiet time to be with God. It is a peaceful time with God.

I think prayer is a time to calm yourself down and talk to Jesus.

I think prayer is to speak to Mary and Jesus.

I think prayer is a time to express yourself to Jesus.

Prayer

Prayer takes on many forms and has many different functions in our lives. Prayer is integral to a Christian, and so, Catholic way of life. Prayer is not unique to any specific religion it is an aspect of any faith, as is spirituality. As prayer is an almost universal experience it is something that can be learnt, practiced and thus handed on to another generation.

In handing on, we need an involvement that is built on knowledge and understanding. This is where teaching about prayer, and how to pray starts. We need to understand the concepts and uses of prayer for ourselves to be able to communicate them to others.

But how does this relate to student outcomes? It depends on the outcome. The important outcomes we may never see.

Sharing Our Story Stage two outcomes centred on Prayer are these,

“Demonstrate an understanding and appreciation of prayer as having many different forms, and as being intrinsic to the Mass and the celebration of the Liturgical year.”

The key concepts are defined as these,
Prayer is a very important way through which we grow in closeness to God.
Prayer involves rituals, symbols and celebrations.
When we pray God is present and active, especially when the Church celebrates the Eucharist.
Our prayer is inspired by the feasts and seasons of the Liturgical year.
There are various traditional and contemporary cultural forms of devotion to Mary and the Saints.

So, to improve student outcomes in prayer I could teach the children various forms of prayers and many of the church traditional prayers. I could pre-test and post-test giving the children grades of E to A. But have I used web 2 at all and have the children been able to transfer knowledge to experience?

I could use web 2 to provide and promote ways and forms of prayer to the staff and I could use web 2 to stimulate discussion around prayer by finding clips that are thought provoking and by searching out websites and sharing them on a blog site. Once prayer is used it becomes easier to use a second and eventually a thousandth time. A bit like communion, the First Communion is wonderful but what about one’s thousandth? Is that one just as wonderful?

Where to from here? I have started a separate blog on inspiritation and prayer so I am wondering where all this will take me and you.

Margaret

After further conversations we agreed that our goals to define prayer is going to be an ongoing process throughout this learning journey we are on.
It was interesting to hear what other classes are doing in their prayer sessions, giving me additional ideas to trial to help make prayer more meaningful to the children in my class.
Lots of discussion was had on the schools prayer bell - is it meaningful or forced - maybe its the time of the bell that is a problem - being in the middle of an activity - has the time got history/significance that we don't really understand - tradition. It is a huge area so surveying the staff looks like a great way to start to again ensure that any changes are meaningful to those involved. It is going to be interesting were this leads us!!!

Student thoughts on Prayer...

I thought I'd go ahead with our idea to quiz the kids on their thoughts on prayer. I went with 4 questions and asked a range of students ("randomly" selected of course!) from grades 4,5 and 6.

The Q's were:

What is prayer?
What does prayer look like at HFS?
What would you like prayer to be at HFS?
Why is prayer good?

It was interesting to see some of the comments. And I was surprised by some of the particular "characters" and what their responses were....

Most students identified prayer as Communicating with God. It can be shared time with others, quiet time, or silent time.

Prayer @ HFS - Wow, we sure like to pray in the morning. This was always the first mention of prayer. Few students identified Mass as prayer, few students mentioned classroom liturgy.

Suggestions for prayer @ HFS - Student ideas included lunch prayer, and prayers of thanks - not just asking for something. A couple of Stage 3 students suggested more student involvement for mass. One child eloquently stated that he thought HFS student were quite reverent at the right times.

Take dome time to have a quick read through the responses - perhaps some ideas for direction for our team.

~mel~

Initial thoughts on prayer from Sarah

After our initial gathering, where we decided to go away with 'homework' to do, I decided to complete the classic 'Google' search on what prayer was. My search turned up many broad and definitions, most of which centred around the idea of communicating to God.

This term I have attempted to change the perception of prayer for the students in my class that prayer isn't necessarily closing your eyes, bowing your head and talking quietly. It can take many forms. I think this is probably something that we all need to think about.

Here are the links to some of the more interesting sites on defining prayer that i found:

http://landru.i-link-2.net/shnyves/prayer.html

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12345b.htm

http://www.allaboutprayer.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer

http://www.allaboutprayer.org/what-is-prayer.htm

Sarah :-)

TEST

Do we have a clue?