Pastoral Project
Pastoral activities for the scholastic year 2009-2010

  MOTO:  
LA SALLE.... watchfulness in Solidarity

  

“La Salle” educational centres base their work on a Christian perception of the world and of man. They expect those who benefit from this work are given the incentive  to acquire the ability of making free and responsible choices as well as establishing a set of values that make life worthwhile.

Therefore, pastoral-educative work occupies an important place in all projects undertaken by LaSallian Schools. This pastoral mission includes: education, catechism and deepening of faith, forming individuals enlightened by the teaching of the Gospel and animating them to take an active and competent part in their professional, social, and cultural life and last but not least in the life of the Church.

 

      La Salle schools offer opportunities for growth and education in values

 

a.            Offer students adequate tools to help them in decisión-making,  something that will have a great  influence on their personal independence and indeed their life, as well as on the development of the group in a healthy and happy atmosphere.

b.           Help students realise the importance of others in their own lives and the benefits accruing from this interaction among them.

c.            Make it possible to build a future together as a community.

 

Alongside their Pastoral-educative mission, LaSallian schools seek to bring together faith and culture, Gospel teaching and Society.We believe it is important that our students, boys and girls, become aware of the problems that the “global world” is facing today, while it is even more important to know the problems of the “real world”, an environment in which they can have and live the experience of serving others.  

 

     We propose the following objectives:

 

  • Making more accessible to our students the means that will help them  reflect  on the poverty in our world, especially the “new poverty” affecting children and youth in European society: immigration, consumerism, new types of dependence, loneliness, bullying (blatant and nonsensical), new types of discrimination...
  • Introducing the different forms of “service” associated with the LaSallian and Christian world.
  • Spreading knowledge of the experiences of “serving” as practised by Jesus of Nazareth.
  • Cultivating attitudes based on values that are deeply Christian and bound to the concept of “SERVICE”, like being observant, attentive to the needs of others, not remaining indifferent, sharing with others, having time for others...
  • Encouraging attitudes of “service” proper to the different stages and psychologic ages and putting into practice those forms of applying oneself to the tasks best suited to the concept of “service”. 

 

I.     Concrete proposals for all students in the school programme: 

1.      Daily prayer and reflection:

Every class period will start and finish with a prayer, which can take different forms so long as it is motivated and significant to the students, becoming the means by which throughout the day they remember they are in the holy presence of God.

The daily reflection, which should take about five minutes, will be made at the start of the first period in class or in the workshop. We would like our students to become familiar with this typical LaSallian custom. In this way we educate them in the Christian and human values as expressed in the Educational Philosophy of the school.

2.       Religious Formation:

      As a teaching tool offering our students a fundamental culture binding faith and life, the time set aside for religious formation should give us the opportunity “to counsel and direct them in their religious doubts and perplexity”.  (The School’s Educational Philosophy).

3.        Vocational Direction and Counselling.

Because this topic forms an essential part of our teaching plans, we have to safeguard it, convinced that is a most suitable tool “to promote an atmosphere of participation that makes co-responsibility possibe. (School’s Educational Philosophy).

4.       Celebrating the Liturgy:

This will take place at the more significant moments of the school year: start of the scholastic year, advent, Church Unity Octave, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, feast of Saint John Baptist De La Salle and the End of the Scholastic Year.

5.        Campaign for helping others:  during Lent and at Christmas time.

 

II.      Optional Extra-Curricular Pastoral work with interested students.

1.      A one-day retreat and  get-together.

During this one-day retreat , those interested will have the opportunity to understand better and make clearer any specific topic or problem they may have.

Dates:  October for Year 9; November for Years 10 and 11.

2.      “Lasallian Youth” Group.

We would like the activitities organized for and by this group, which is open to all our students, to be such as to help the members  to “become their own masters (have a mind of their own) and establish a set of values that will make their lives worthwhile. Dates, time-tables and topics for reflection will be set, by agreement among those concerned, in the first weeks of the scholastic year.

3.      Folklore Dancers Group.

4.      Club “la Salle” – sporting activities

5.     Outings and Camps:

These can be organised either during school time or during the summer holidays.