The children were saying the same prayers from Early Years to Y6, which had been in place for a number of years. Talking to the children about there engagement in prayer we wanted to make sure that the words they were saying each day had meaning for them. We wanted them to ave ownership of their prayer and engage in prayer at a higher spiritual level using words that they understood rather than words they were simply told.

We realised that formal prayers contain words and phrases that have little meaning to children with language far removed from most young children's typical vocabulary and wanted them to pray in their own words with increasing challenge for the older children.

As the Lord’s prayer is the prayer that Jesus used to teach us to pray, the school decided to explain the structure of praise, thanksgiving, petition and contrition that Jesus used in His prayer, and encouraged the KS2 children to write their own prayer, in their own words with the same structure.

We explained it all at an assembly and invited the children to enter a competition with the winning prayer being used by the whole school at future assemblies and the rest of the prayers used in a class folder of prayers for classroom prayer and liturgies.

We had so many entries that each class had to shortlist six to pass on to our Claretian Priests to be judged. They were very impressed by the entries and after much deliberation the winner emerged... Congratulations to Elijah in year 3 for his winning effort.

Oh, Lord my God.

When I open my eyes every morning, I give thanks to you for a new day in my life. 

I am very thankful to you God, for all the blessings in my life.

Help me God to forgive those who have been bad to me and forgive me if I am bad to others.

So this world will be a better place. 

Guide me, so I can spread your peaceful light and your love in this world.

Amen