At St Gabriel’s, we have a dedicated Pupil Leadership Team that empowers our children to take an active role in our school community. By embracing our core values, they inspire and lead others, fostering a positive and supportive environment for all.
Together, these groups embody our commitment to nurturing hearts, minds, and spirits, and inspire their peers to live out our Catholic values in meaningful ways. The Pupil Leadership Team at St Gabriel’s not only enhances our school community but also extends our reach, showing that even small actions, when done with great love, can make a significant difference.
The GIFT Team
Chaplaincy
Mrs Forkin is our Lay Chaplain, who helps nurture the liturgical life of St Gabriel’s school community. Mrs Forkin also helps facilitate the Gift Team. Chaplaincy plays a central role in all areas of school life. The St Teresa Chapel is based on the mathematics corridor and is open for all members of our school community for a quiet space to reflect and pray. It is also used extensively by our GIFT Teams to plan charity and liturgical events.
Gift Team
St Gabriel’s Gift Team (Growing in Faith Together) has 30 members, that are active in their liturgical role in the school. The Gift Team supports students in gaining more confidence in leading prayer and becoming active members of the local Parish communities. Our GIFT Teams meet each week and aims to share with others that which is most sacred in our school, the Good News of Jesus Christ. A different student each week leads the meeting, which encourages leadership skills and increases students’ confidence in public speaking. All members of our school community are given opportunities to respond, reflect, and act upon this message.
The Gift Team begins each weekly meeting by saying together our Mission Statement Prayer.
The Gift Team led the Assemblies for Interfaith Week and the Caritas Red Door Campaign to make food hampers. The team also led assemblies for World Religion Day, where they celebrated the diversity within St Gabriel’s.
The Gift team led the Staff and Student Lenten prayer and read out prayers they had written especially for this prayer time.
Patrick O’Dowd, the Director of Caritas, gave an inspiring talk to members of the Gift Team. Students took part in a question and answer session, where they found out more about the work that Caritas does in Bury.
The Gift Team and GCSE Geography students were privileged to listen to two guest speakers from CAFOD. They learnt about the work that CAFOD does globally and how they can support CAFOD further, through fundraising.
Caritas
Patrick O’Dowd, the Director of Caritas, gave an inspiring talk to members of the Gift Team. Students took part in a question and answer session, where they found out more about the work that Caritas does in Bury.
Kath Ansley training up the newest Caritas Ambassadors. The students are looking forward to continuing to raise awareness and fundraise for Caritas at St Gabriel’s.
Other Areas of Pupil Leadership
Each Key Stage 3 Form Tutor uses the St Teresa of Calcutta Chapel to deliver a Chapel experience on Kindness, The Holy Spirit and Love Thy Neighbour.
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Laudato Si is the second encyclical by Pope Francis and is considered part of the Catholic Social Teaching tradition. It reminds us of our God-given responsibly to care for our world and all life on it. At Gabriel’s we have an Eco group and a Year 7 Laudato Si Group. We have also worked with the City of Tree Project to plant trees around the school premises.
Each Form group have a Mission and Prayer Leader who assists the Form teacher in leading Form Prayers, reflections, collective worship in assemblies, special holy days, and charity events.
The Year 8 Mission and Prayer Leaders met with Lorraine Leonard to take part in the Big Listen for the Diocesan Synod.
Year 8 Mission and Prayer Leader representatives led students and staff in a Lenten prayer. It was a fantastic way to start the day with a time to pause and reflect.
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