Strategic Priority 1: Witnessing Faith
"On a daily basis, Catholic School demonstrates the joy of believing and witness the Good News to the communities we serve." - Renewing the Promise, Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario
Actions to be Taken
- Engage a writing team in advance of the school year to gather and develop resources to support the identified 2022-2023 spiritual theme: Listening With the Ear of the Heart.
- Build awareness and understanding of the spiritual theme at the beginning of the school year:
- August 24 - Presentation to Principals, Vice Principals and Sr Managers
- August 25-26 - Presentation to School Administrative Assistants
- September 1 - Academic Services staff
- September 9 - Presentation to CEC/OMAC staff
- September 15 - Presentation to DCPIC
- September 26 - Presentation to Trustees
- Utilize Teams sites to provide access to spiritual theme resources for school administrators and Academic Services staff.
- Support administrators and school teams to reflect upon and diversify the religious icons, symbols and visible expressions of Catholic identity in the schools (e.g., diverse representations of the Holy Family; saints from cultures that reflect the diversity of students and the community).
- Collaboration among Academic Services staff to identify cross-curricular connections to the Board theme.
Actions to be Taken
- Re-engage Faith Ambassadors in each school and provide inservice that focuses on liturgical support and building capacity to foster adult faith formation for staff. October to December - series of after school drop-in virtual sessions. February - full-day learning session and retreat.
- Explore programs that can be adopted to support system adult faith formation (e.g., Walking Each Other Home series).
- Support the faith formation of Principals, and System Leaders through retreat opportunities that will enable administrators to reflect on their role as spiritual leaders of their faith community.
- Provide all staff opportunity to engage in Advent and Lenten Twilight Retreats.
- Offer learning opportunities to non-Catholic CEC staff prior to communal faith celebrations to increase their understanding of Catholic rituals so that staff may feel more at ease and welcomed during these celebrations.
Actions to be Taken
- Review the Pastoral Plan template and revise, as needed, so that the plans are purposeful and meaningful for school communities.
Note: Implementation in-progress. The pastoral plan template has been revised and has been shared with administrators and pastors for feedback. The new template and accompanying resource will be implemented in Fall of 2023. - Share school Pastoral Plans with home and parish (e.g., school newsletters, Catholic School Council, parish bulletin).
Note: The pastoral plan template was under revision this year. Schools shared faith initiatives and school/parish partnerships via social media, school newsletter, Edsby, etc. - Assist educators and administrators to support the parish and families with sacramental preparation (e.g., school and class visits by Elementary Religious Education consultant; resources provided by Faith Ambassador).
Note: Academic Services has shared with our local pastors the Growing in Faith, Growing in Christ parish resource portal to develop a shared understanding of the sacramental instruction students receive in the classroom and and the way in which this instruction can complement the sacramental preparation in parishes.
- Enhance the annual retreat opportunities for Grade 9-12 students through monthly meetings and a sharing of best practices with Secondary Chaplains.
- Enhance elementary retreat opportunities by providing opportunities for Secondary Chaplains to attend Elementary Faith Ambassadors meeting to co-plan retreats.
Note: Secondary School Chaplains attended the elementary Adult Faith Ambassador training days to establish a connection and offer support. The re-establishment of the Adult Faith Ambassador's post-COVID has focused on providing resource supports and clarifying the role. Elementary retreats were not a focus in the 2022-2023 school year.
- Provide training to student mentors to serve as retreat leaders (i.e., development sessions to occur through Chaplaincy at each Secondary School).
Note: The use of student retreat leaders has been implemented in some Catholic secondary schools and is under continued development in the remaining secondary schools.