As a Catholic School, Gospel values permeate our whole approach to education. We believe in helping our students to develop a personal and community spirituality appropriate to their age. Students of all religions and none are very welcome.
Our school Church is a place of quiet, where students and staff are welcome to reflect or for personal prayer.
Experience of different types of prayer (meditation, communal, reflection) are provided for classes. Students find quiet meditation particularly helpful.
We try to provide a Retreat for senior year groups each year.
We provide opportunities for different types of liturgical and sacramental celebrations – emphasising the particular seasons of the year (New School Year, Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Graduations etc.). Students particularly like small group liturgies, which they themselves prepare.
We celebrate the Feast of our Patron St Finian on December 12th.
Education in global awareness, human rights and social justice, and the Christian’s response to these issues is a major part of our school ethos.
Sacred Space
Our Church provides a space in the school to help us reflect, to pause and find God in our daily lives. Our Religion Department and students use our church during the different liturgical celebrations of the year.
We welcome time in our daily lives to find God in everything, we are reminded of his presence around us.
The Ember Programme
What is Ember? The Ember Programme is a faith leadership training programme for students at senior level in secondary schools. The students are trained to become faith leaders in their schools and in some cases they act as mentors for incoming students at Junior Level.
Ember Teams
We want to create opportunities for students in our schools to lead and to deepen their own faith. We use the word Ember as a metaphor of how a small flame can ignite a fire. We take the model from the KANDLE diocese of Meitheal groups “Act justly, love tenderly and walk humbly with your God”, as an example of what can be achieved. Under the supervision of Ms Garvin & Sarah, our school chaplain, the Ember Leaders - Liam de Clar, Zofia Bielicka, John Fry, Caomhan Mc Gabhann, Eabha Wallace, - worked together to implement, enhance and promote the school's ethos. Examples of the work done by the Ember Leaders were Prayer Services for each year group held in our school church, renewal of Confirmation Promises by our 1st year students, the 3rd year Faith Table Quiz and the 2nd year Faith Treasure Hunt. These activities provided students with a quiet place for reflection and mindfulness, which help students emotional and spiritual wellbeing and also a time for joining together to have fun.
St Finian
Born in the sixth century, St Finian made his way to Clonard in County Meath where he established a school for Christian learning. It is recorded that no fewer than 3,000 pupils were educated at one time in Clonard. St Finian appears to have had a special gift for teaching, particularly in the exposition of Sacred Scriptures. Many of his pupils became great teachers and established monastic schools throughout Ireland and Europe. The work of St Finian contributed in no small part to the reputation of Ireland as “the land of saints and scholars”.
