Welcome to Animate

Animate... Working with Schools

Lowe House is the home for Youth Ministry in the Diocese. With a large hall, smaller rooms, Youth Café and extensive grounds we can help to develop RE curriculum in schools. Days of Recollection, Retreat Days, Days with a Difference can help support your needs in delivering dynamic, contemporary and inspiring sessions to communicate the Gospel message. We endeavour to enhance ICONS Programme for RE by running days that will work in conjunction with the curriculum. We work on many different themes with different year group from schools across the Diocese, working with the school beforehand to prepare a day around the needs of the young people coming. We are a Team with flexibility and if it is not possible to come away we will come to you.

School Missions
Over the past couple of years the Team has been working with a number of schools, including St Mary’s-Crosby, SS Peter and Paul’s-Widnes, St Bede’s-Ormskirk and St Aelred’s- Newton le Willows on full scale school missions. This involves 8-9 months pre-mission planning, a celebration week and post- mission follow up. As the Team is local we can be on hand to help advise and support the mission of the school. To find out more details please do not hesitate to contact us.

Here are a selection of school groups that the Animate Team have been working with...

What a week we had in All Hallows, an amazing place to be. This was the first time we worked with the school and the furthest North in the diocese we have travelled for a Mission. Throughout the week we led sessions for each year group in the drama theatre while around school there were ‘Mission Theme’ lessons going on in each subject area. Due to an unfortunately timed exam we were unable to work in the school on the Wednesday. This did however give us a chance to be ‘Animate on tour’, as over the course of the day we visited four of the feeder primary schools and led a short session on the Mission theme in each. The week culminated in our community celebration on the Thursday evening which drew people from near and far associated with the school, and our masses on Friday for year 10 and 11 in the morning, and year 7,8 and 9 in the afternoon. With a rousing rendition of Trading My Sorrows and Jesus is a Rock the whole week finished with a bang!

The year 7’s continued to flow through our door as this time we welcomed each form from St Edmund Arrowsmith to Lowe House and the Life and Soul Café. Over each day we explored what it meant to live out St Francis of Assisi’s words ‘Preach the Gospel at all times, when necessary use words’. After exploring the morals and meanings in our modern day films we brought to life the morals and meanings of Gospel Stories with dramas involving the scripture versions of Judge Judy and Jeremy Kyle as well as the feeding of the 5000 in McDonald’s! The days were enjoyed thoroughly by the team and we hope the same can be said for the pupils and staff at St Edmund’s.

In the first week of October we were very fortunate to welcome every student in year 7 from St John Fisher over four consecutive days. It was an absolutely amazing week filled with excitement, laughter, spirituality and prayer. The focus of the day retreats was “Let Your Light Shine” exploring the passage in Matthews’s gospel. We can gladly say that every young person let their light shine with their own unique gifts and talents over their days at Lowe House.

The new year 7’s of De la Salle joined the Animate team for day retreats focussing on letting their little light shine! They did this brilliantly participating in everything we had to throw at them. Throughout the eight days the groups made individual flames, each describing themselves in beautiful colours showing their gifts and talents and what makes them special and individual. At the end of the day through prayer and meditation everyone joined their flames together on one big candle to show how special their community is, and will be, over the coming years in school. At the end of each day we could definitely say that a fantastic day was had by all.

Among our last week of day retreats we welcomed the St Mary’s year 8’s who explored prayer in our everyday lives. The day looked into the importance of prayer and how we pray, leading up to the final part of the day being prayer stations, with some developed on the day by some very inspired young people!

We welcomed all the boys from year 8 over the course of a week for our last day retreats of the year. It was a great way to finish with some amazing lads showing just how to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ taking the theme of the retreats to heart. Looking at examples of ‘friends’ and ‘enemies’, and exploring everyday ‘conflict’ and ‘reconciliation’ in the world and our lives, the day helped everyone to look at how we treat the people we meet each day and how we can follow Jesus example in showing love to all.

What a week we had in Warrington. Becky said it was the best place ever but we didn’t realise until we actually experienced it. The week took an insight into ‘inspiration’ with the theme being ‘As a faith community we can inspire others’. In the drama theatre with the team and in classrooms with teachers it was a very inspiring week for all involved with involvement in the delivery from around 100 young people from across the year groups. It was also a great chance for next years’ team members to come in and experience what a Mission Week is all about. Thank you to all at St Gregory’s for your amazing welcome!

At the beginning of June we welcomed the guys and girls from year 9 to our Life and Soul Café for a day exploring Social Justice. Using a number of helpful CAFOD resources among other things we looked at the things that we value in life using the values auction. We also explored injustice in people’s lives and created flags showing on one side - the injustice, and on the other – how we combat that. A great day was had by all

Over the course of two weeks in May we spent four days working in the school with a day for each of year 7, 8, 9 and 10. The days with year 7 and 8 explored the theme of ‘We are one body’ which helped us to think about the part we play in the body. Each of us is made for a purpose so what is our purpose and how do we think we can play our part and be the best that we can be. The days with year 9 and 10 explored the theme ‘Growing together in faith’ looking at the relationships we have with those around us and how our choices and actions can either have a positive or negative affect on others, and does our faith play a part in our decision making. All the days involved both large and small group activities with fun hands on drama and art workshops with games film clips and teachings in the main hall.

It has been an excellent few days working with the year 8’s of St Peter’s, who the team worked with last year on mission. The theme of the retreat days was ‘Growing together in Faith’ which looked at how we can all make a difference to the world and to each other with the choices and changes we make to our lives, and how by showing Gods love to others, we can enable them to grow in faith. The days also focused on how God is always with us on our journeys, and always there to help us with our choices in life so that we can make a difference.

The team had the opportunity to work with year 8’s from St. Bede’s at St. Ann’s Parish Hall in Ormskirk, focusing on the theme ‘Let Your Light Shine’. This gave the pupils a chance to look at their gifts and talents and to learn that each one of them is important and their gifts and talents should not be hidden away, but used to help one another to achieve and that we are all part of the Body of Christ. There was also the chance to focus on what our vocations are, and how we can use our gifts and talents to achieve our dreams, but also to help other people achieve theirs too.

It was great to head back to Christ the King to spend the day with year 8. After the mission last year and a day with year 7 before Christmas it feels almost like a second home. With year 8 we explored what it means to be stewards of creation using the theme ‘God saw all that He had made and indeed it was very good’. We looked at how we can care for the creation of the natural world but also God’s creation of our fellow brothers and sisters around the world. God gave us enough on this earth for all of us to be able to live in a safe environment with our basic needs met, yet so many people go without these basics and we take advantage of the natural resources we have. We looked at what we can do to change this or at least have a positive affect on the world we live in to truly live as stewards of God’s creation.








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