Mrs Dawson is our RE and Gift Chaplaincy Lead at Saint Teresa’s 

The Saint Teresa's GIFT (Growing in Faith Together) team is a collaborative ministry which brings together a partnership of people who, through faith, have many different skills and gifts to offer. Our school is named after Saint Teresa Of Lisieux. We are all Saint Teresa's little flowers, growing in God's love and if we follow St Teresa's "little way" by offering a smile, a kind deed, a helping hand to others; we will continue to grow together on our faith journey.

At the heart of the GIFT chaplaincy faith team lies our mission statement and our school prayer.  Love lies at the heart of everything we do because "God Is Love".

We are all part of the GIFT team and we all have different skills and talents to offer our school and the wider community.  

Our staff utilise their skills well to offer a broad and balanced curriculum and enhance our school through the subjects and areas they lead.

Father Anthony is our parish priest and is a regular visitor to our school. The children love to chat to him on the playground. He visits classes regularly to say hello . He says masses for us throughout the year. The Sacramental class visit church regularly as part of the programme and the chaplaincy team represent the school at some masses  during the year.

Our Gift Chaplaincy team at St Teresa's consists of both Year Five and Year Six pupils.  They have special badges with our Saint Teresa's Cross and are also known as The Saint Teresa's Sunflower Team. The sunflower is at the heart of the cross and represents God's everlasting  love. It also represents St Teresa who was also known as The Little Flower . 

Mrs Dawson is the Chaplaincy and Prayer and Liturgy lead in school and she coordinates many aspects of Chaplaincy and collective worship in school, which include supporting staff in the delivery of prayer and liturgy, regularly leading staff meetings on prayer and different approaches to leading daily acts of worship . Mrs Dawson also leads key assemblies throughout the Liturgical year with the very active  support of the pupil chaplains. She is also responsible for planning whole school masses in collaboration with the pupil chaplaincy team.  

The team work hard to develop innovative masses, assemblies, reflections, liturgies which engage and ignite our pupils and staff to challenge themselves to be the best that they can be. They are always open to new ideas and suggestions to promote our faith in school. The team lead Advent Reflection Stations with their own ideas for worship and engage with younger pupils. They lead a Breaking of Bread Service during Lent and in the Summer Term a God's Wonderful World Collective Worship incorporating psalms and songs into their liturgy .

The Gift Chaplaincy team also work with the Sacramental Group regularly. 

They promote our charity work throughout the year encouraging donations of tinned goods for local food banks at harvest time , love in a box collections , Cafod World Gifts and St Joseph's Penny Fundraising events . At our Macmillan Coffee Morning they signed and shared our school prayer . They handed out prayer cards to families and gifts of flowers as a celebration of St Teresa the little flower.
 

We are a very happy, family school who care about each other and those in need . Catholic Social Teaching is all about Love in Action . This is a strength of our school.We endeavour to create a nurturing  environment where  all feel valued and above all loved. 

Chaplaincy comes from the word Capella which means cloak. We hope to be a school that envelops all with love and care. We cloak our children in love and teach them to share that love with others by reaching out to the poor and needy in our own communities and further afield .

We are all called to share the Good News of God's love for us and to love one another .