Laudato Si Group

Laudato Si' is that commitment from the staff and children from SSMJ to 'Caring for Our Common Home'. Faith is at the centre of our school in every aspect and it allows us to share that passion and commitment to caring for God's creation. The Laudato Si' pupil group was formed a few years ago and it allows children to have that focus and share that passion not only with school but with the local community too to look after our environment and become more aware of our choices to make better decisions. It allows children to understand that small choices about what we eat, what we buy, how we behave can have a dramatic difference to the world we live in. With the support of staff at school the Laudato Si' group develop the school grounds for all the children to use and develop those community links so that Laudato Si can start to become a reality. It encourages our children to take action on things that matter the most. 

Gardening 11/4/24

Today the Parish and school came together to have a go at some gardening. We were able to rake over the area by the houses and then scatter some wild seed mix. The rest of the group planted some violas and pansies at the side of Church. Thank you for all your help. 

Gardening 27/2/24

The Laudato Si' Parish and School came together tonight to complete some gardening work. Thank you to everyone for the help in developing our garden area. The area behind Church is ready to blossom as soon as it gets warm enough. 

Laudato Si' Meeting 21/2/24

At the Laudato Si' meeting this week we created some Lent prayers to be hung on the prayer tree in the garden as we noticed that after the recent storms some had blown off. 

School Laudato Si' Meeting 7/2/24

The school Laudato Si' met at lunchtime again this week and continued with designing the posters and decorations for Church to help inform people all about Laudato Si'. 

Parish & School Gardening Saturday 3rd February 2024 

The Parish and School came together to enjoy another gardening session. This week we worked on the school garden preparing it ready for the woodchips arriving on Monday 5th February 2024. The garden looks fabulous again and is starting to spring into life. Thank you to all my helpers! 

Laudato Si' Parish Nearly New Sale

The Laudato Si' Parish and School group have organised a 'Nearly New' sale to take place on Saturday 27th January 2024. This helps support the vision of living simply and reducing the amount we buy new where we can. It is a brilliant example of staff and members of the parish coming together for one common aim. It also helps members of the community come together and enjoy a community event whilst enjoying a cup of coffee.

We hosted our Parish Laudato Si' 'Nearly New Sale' and we raised £165. Thank you very much to all our wonderful helpers for donating bags of items, setting up, selling through to tidying away. A brilliant example of our community working together. It was a great way to spread our message about 'Living Simply'. 

Bags 3 Schools then collected the remaining items and we raised another £65 towards our total. What a very successful event. 

Laudato Si' Meeting 17th January 2024 (Missionary Disciples)

The Laudato Si' had a meeting and discussed some ideas to help decorate Church. The children planned what drawings they would like to see in Church to help inform people all about Laudato Si' and the work we do in school. Watch out for next week when we will take some photographs of our work. 

Laudato Si' Parish Gardening 2nd December 2023

Laudato Si' Parish Gardening 28/10/23

This morning our wonderful Parish Laudato Si' group came together to work on different parts of the gardens. They worked very hard to tidy up different parts of the garden to prepare it ready for winter. Thank you to all our dedicated helpers. 

Laudate Deum 4th October 2023

The Vatican released the new Apostolic Exhortation by Pope Francis, Laudate Deum, to all people of good will on the climate crisis, on 4 October 2023. It is a document intended to follow up on his 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si’, On Care for Our Common Home. This document helps support our Catholic Socialist Teaching taking place within school. Laudate Deum is an urgent call to tackle the climate crisis, recognising that time is running out. And irreversible damage has already been done.Click the link below to find out more from the CAFOD website. 

Canticle of the Creatures

Francis’s Canticle is thought to be the earliest piece of literature written in the Italian language, rather than in the language of the Church; Latin. Click below to listen to it or read a copy below. 

September 2023

The children had a meeting to discuss what they would like the Laudato Si' Missionary Disciples to achieve and below you will find a copy of their action plan. They thought carefully about how they could make a wider impact this year and have clear targets and aims throughout the year. 

Summer Holidays 2023 

The work with the Laudato Si' Parish Group has continued over the summer as we have worked on a few smaller projects. Take a look below to see what we have been up to. 

The Parish and the school have been working very hard together to organise a 'Live Simply Parish Fun Day' for the community. There are going to be lots of exciting things including activities organised by SSMJ Women's Group, SSMJ PTA, SSMJ Little Church and SSMJ School Staff and its a chance for the community to come together and enjoy a lovely afternoon. 

A massive THANK YOU to everyone who helped out or came and supported the event. It was lovely to see so many faces we know and some new friends too. The event raised a huge £700 and some of this is going towards the Carers association in Clitheroe and some will go to the SSMJ PTA. 

The Laudato Si' Parish and School group have been working hard over the summer to create some 'Dead Hedging' at the back of the SSMJ Church. It has been amazing to see so may people working together to develop an area of the Church. The 'Dead Hedging' will provide the perfect environment to attract a wide array of different species. 

Bailey Fold Hedge Clearing 

The Parish and School Laudato Si' have been working hard to trim back the hedges that cover the boundaries of Bailey Fold. 

Live Simply Award 2023

23/6/23

Pupils and staff from St Michael & St John’s Roman Catholic Primary School recognised for living simply, sustainably and in solidarity.

Pupils and staff from St Michael & St John’s RC Primary have achieved the Live Simply Award after taking action to demonstrate they are living simply, sustainably and in solidarity with the world’s poorest communities.

Championed by overseas development charity CAFOD, the award was presented to pupils and staff on 20^th June 2023, St Michael & St John’s implemented a number of exceptional projects that highlighted the importance of caring for people and the planet. Their actions had a positive impact on their school community and also reached out to embrace the local community and our global community too.  

The whole school and local Church Laudato Si’ over the past two years combined forces to develop the garden areas around the Church and School by planting vegetables, trees and bee bombs providing a sanctuary for wildlife that encapsulates that message of ‘Caring for Our Common Home’.

A Year 6 Pupil commented on why they took part in the Live Simply Award.

“It’s all about making a small change and we know that can eventually make a big difference.”

Katrina Harkin (Laudato Si’ Lead) at St Michael & St John’s who led the Live Simply journey said:

“It has been an incredible experience over the past two years and has provided all the children with some wonderful experiences. It has given the children that deeper understanding of how to care for the world we live in and boosted that love of the great outdoors and caring for the local environment. We look forward to seeing what our continuing journey brings.”

CAFOD’s Live Simply assessor Ann Neale said “The children have a real pride in their achievements, and in the awards that their friends have achieved because of the work they have all been involved in.”

“Congratulations to the pupils and staff from St Michael & St John’s RC Primary School on achieving the Live Simply Award.”

CAFOD & WWF Fundraising Day Friday 30th June

At St Michael & St John’s where we are a strong Catholic School we understand the importance of fund raising different charities. Our first charity is CAFOD and this is charity close to our hearts who raise funds to support people across the world and ensure those people who need the support receive it. Click the link below to find out about the important work they do.

Our second charity is the WWF where we would like to raise some money to adopt a few of the animals. Click the link below to find out about the important work they do. 

Both charities support our strong Catholic ethos of caring for our ‘Common Home’ (Laudato Si’) and caring ‘Brothers and Sisters’ (Fratelli Tutti) and support the Catholic Socialist Teaching Principles.

To help raise funds which will be evenly split between both charities, all children will be taking part in an ‘Assault Course Challenge’ completing as many laps as they can in the time given. This will take place on Friday 30th June at 1pm. Please help to support our fundraising event by clicking on the link below and making a donation on our Just Giving Pages. Thank you for your help. 

We Did It!

Meet Laudato Si' Team at SSMJ 2022/23

Laudato Si Actions 2022/23

We work closely with the Laudato Si' group from Church and they have been helping us to develop the gardens. Please click on the link to find out the fascinating work that has been happening in our Parish. 

Meet the Laudato Si' Team at SSMJ

On Wednesday 27th April the Laudato Si' Group in school presented an assembly to the rest of the school. They told the rest of the school all about Laudato Si'. Here is a copy of the Power Point below. 

Laudato Si' Background Information (CAFOD)

Laudato Si’ is an encyclical written by Pope Francis, it was published on the 18 June 2015. Encyclicals are open letters written by the Pope. Laudato Si’ discusses the damage being inflicted on the Earth by humans and calls on ‘every person living on this planet’ to make urgent changes to our lifestyles and how we consume energy in order to protect the planet. It deals with many environmental issues including pollution; climate change; water; loss of biodiversity and decline in the quality of human life. In his letter Pope Francis implores us to work together to create a better world for future generations and asks us to make the necessary changes in our lives in order to take care of, respect and value our ‘common home’.

The aim of the animation is to help explain and communicate the message of Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’ to children, and to inspire them to take action.

Big Plastic Count 16th May - 22nd May

Before the count started the children looked at a power point presentation by Greenpeace to help them identify the different plastics they may find in their home. During the Big Plastic Count the children took home a tally chart to help sort and count the plastic items they throw away at home. The tally charts were brought back into school and the results were uploaded to the Big Plastic website and our 'School Plastic Footprint' was created. Next week (after half term) the Laudato Si' group will be looking at this information and then thinking about how they could best share the information with home. 

During Laudato Si' Week 2022 the children took part in different activities across the whole school. The children watched the animation and discussed different ways of protecting our 'Common Home'.