Thursday 7th February found Jackie and Fran from the development team at St Edmund’s College, Ware.
St Edmund’s College is a Catholic boarding and day school, set in 440 acres of ground. They teach children from the ages of 4-18. On Thursday, we were working with the Lower and Upper Sixth Forms.
Paula Pierce, the teacher in charge of the religious life of the school, had requested a day based around Catholic Social Teaching. We had the four morning sessions and decided to focus on the CST principles of Dignity, Community and Participation, and Option for the Poor, before challenging the young people to create their own prototype social action project.
In groups of ten, the young people were lead through a morning of short workshops. First, we gave the young people a short input, breaking open the principle we were focussing on and allowing the young people to discuss. They were then lead through a breakout session, which took the form of an engaging activity which aimed to bring the principle into clearer focus and put it into context. After the activity, the groups were encouraged to feed back to the whole room and their ideas were unpacked together.
The young people were engaged and involved with the sessions. They seemed to get a lot out of the day and, once the initial awkwardness has dissipated, were happy to share what they had discussed in their groups.
