Faith Life

What we mean by Faith in Action 

The Catholic Faith is an integral part of More House School. We believe that faith is a single step on a great adventure with God and that education helps shape the lives of our pupils and how they participate in society. 

As such, school life at More House School aims to educate pupils to live justly in their own lives and to strive for peace and justice for others. We encourage our pupils to think and to act compassionately within the school, the local community, and society.

Our goal in Faith in Action is to expand and develop our faith by pursuing the practical aspects of developing a lifestyle dominated by values and concerns that resemble God’s values and concerns. It is a practice in following Catholic Social Teaching, formed from the roots of scripture, following the wisdom of the church and living this out in the world around us. 

The CST principles of dignity, solidarity, the common good, giving options to the poor, pursuing peace, caring for creation and providing dignity of work and participation form our collective moral compass. More House School reflects this in both our weekly Spirit and Truth reflections and our faith in action work.  

Weekly Meetings

Pupils meet every Wednesday during lunch one to plan and execute their term events, this could be a discussion and talk in school, or a wider school or community project to help those in both our school and wider community.   

Examples of our FiA Projects 

Our More House pupils led on the following initiatives in the Autumn Term of this academic year. It was important for them to settle their Year 7 pupils into the school community through both prayer and social events. 

Liturgy 

Our pupils who are involved in FiA have been integral to all of our liturgies, for both welcome, weekly and advent liturgies.

Prayer Corners 

Our FiA pupils created a focused area within each form allowing for a reflection area to guide prayer and discussion for every pupil. This area both serves as a continual presence of the word of the Lord and a reflective space if needed. 

Interfaith Week

During Interfaith week pupil’s led an assembly to educate us on the importance of remembering our differences and the need to share both our faith and worldviews. This culminated in the creation of some key artwork to be displayed all around the school. The following is the winning poster. 

Samaritan’s Purse Shoe Box Appeal

Pupils and parents raised both money and beautiful gifts for those less fortunate this Christmas.

More House School filled 47 boxes and St Andrews Church, Chelsea sent these to those in need around the world through Samaritan’s Purse. 

Cinema for younger peers

Our Sixth Form pupils chose to put on a cinema night for Year 7 and Year 8 pupils. The Year 7 and 8 girls picked their own film and enjoyed a nice fun filled evening led by their Year 12 fellow pupils. 

Faith in action – School Prayer

The girls wanted to build upon Thomas More’s prayer and have our school values reflected through their own words. Working across key stages we developed a girls school prayer. 

We ask you Lord to show us how to love
one another, to show compassion, trust
and forgiveness within our friendships
and relationships both in and out of
school.

We aim to be thankful for the love that
you have given us, and ask for your help
to treat all with care and dignity.

Guide us to be honest when we are wrong
so we can learn from our mistakes.

We pray that as a school we have the
strength to meet the needs of others,
taking consideration in all that we do.

We hope for peace around the world and
for tolerance, strength and courage to
look after those less fortunate.
We strive to live with love.

Amen.

Catholic Social Teaching

Our Faith in Action team decided to show off all the wonderful things that they do, and the Catholic Social teaching that they are acting upon. The Catholic tradition teaches that human dignity can be protected and a healthy community can be achieved only if human rights are protected and responsibilities are met. Therefore, every person has a fundamental right to life and a right to those things required for human decency. 

St Josephine Bakhita Fundraising

Josephine Bakhita is the Patron Saint of Human Trafficking. She is a shining ray of hope for human trafficking victims and an inspirational demonstration of how a victim can recover from their trauma and become whole again.

Assemblies 

During Fair Trade and Spiritual Week the Religious Studies department took the time to recognise our call to live out Catholic Social Teaching through recognising the need to treat others as we would like to be treated. Through focusing on the need for Fairtrade in the business world, we discussed the knock on effect of our consumerism on local farming and the wider community. We looked at wider spirituality outside of Christianity and took a meditative approach to arts and crafts through mandala making. To finish off this important week we looked at the need for respect during debating all topics of disagreement and recognised the necessity of Ash Wednesday to start off this Lenten period. 

Bake Sales

Faith in Action pupils raised money for the Syrian and Turkish Earthquake appeal through the sale of FairTrade cakes and cookies. This culminates at the end of Fairtrade Fortnight and showcases the passions of our Faith in Action pupils.

Easter Egg Raffle 

We raised money by selling £77 worth of raffle tickets to raise money for the Syrian and Turkish Earthquake appeal.

Sharing Faiths – Ramadan

Some of our Key Stage 3 Muslim pupils in our penultimate week of Spring term welcomed the start of Ramadan by giving a whole school presentation of the importance and details of Ramadan.

Libya Flood Appeal

We held a non-uniform day and raised an amazing £325. This was in response to the catastrophic flooding in Libya and the emergency Red Cross appeal to support the people affected.