Catholic Life

“Education is integral to the mission of the Church to proclaim the Good News. First and foremost every Catholic educational institution is a place to encounter the living God who in Jesus Christ reveals his transforming love and truth.” (Christ at the Centre, Bishop Marcus Stock)

As a Catholic school in the heart of Dewsbury, we take our responsibility to every child here very seriously and we believe that, alongside an outstanding academic education, children deserve a strong Catholic education too. At St John Fishers we offer each child the opportunity for daily prayer, worship and reflection. We pray together each day in form and we end the day with our End of the Day prayer, taken from St John Henry Newman's Holy Rest prayer. In this way, we "wrap the day in prayer" and all students are able to build up a routine of prayer in their lives which we hope will extend into their lives as adults.  

We mirror the Church's year in school and celebrate important events, such as Lent, Advent and Holy Days of Obligation, as well as celebrating feast days in the Church's calendar. Each week, Fr Eamonn Hegarty celebrates mass for us in school, where all are welcome - this is also open to parishioners of the local churches, putting St John Fishers in the heart of the faith community. 

Over the course of the year, the children learn about the virtues and we use themes with scripture references to inform all our form time prayers and assemblies. We build on the knowledge of the virtues from Year 7 through to Year 13 so that our students leave St John Fishers with a firm understanding of the faith and in the clear knowledge that they are loved and valued by God. 

We come together at other times in the academic year to celebrate special events and also gather together to support each other in times of crisis in our community. We have a beautiful Chapel that is used for many different kinds of liturgy and worship.

As well as prayer and worship, we encourage our students to put their faith into action and have a strong tradition of supporting charities - each year group having a nominated charity. We have a Youth St Vincent De Paul group that has an elected President and Vice-president to lead the group to "Put Concern into Action". 

Please use the links on this page to have a look at the different ways our Catholic Life is lived out at St John Fishers.