The Briars team were joined for the week on the 23rd-27th September by the Year Six pupils of Saint Charles and Good Shepherd. The retreat focused on the Beatitudes and was jam packed with adventure, creativity and reflection.

In our small groups we worked together to create a night prayer on the theme of the Beatitudes that we shared with our neighbouring small group. Our groups also created and shared morning prayer with the whole group every morning to begin our day.

Some of our fabulous focus tables that we created for morning prayer

We were also creative in our small groups, making five minute movies to represent being true to ourselves that we presented at the Briars BAFTAS. We also created our own superhero costumes for CAFOD so we could fight climate change to save the world.

On Tuesday we got very wet as good Shepherd explored the Tramway Museum whilst St.Charles stayed dry and painted how they saw the Beatitudes!

On Wednesday we ventured outside our comfort zones as we had a day of rock climbing, fire lighting, team building and archery all of which were enjoyed massively!

Our last full day together we prepared mass which we celebrated together as a community. Afterwards we had our Briars disco! Last we experienced our final night prayer created by the team that allowed us to reflect how we would take our time at the Briars back into our everyday lives.

Our Display that we created for mass, featuring some of our beautiful artwork that we created during the week

Our final night prayer together, created by the team. We wrote on mirrors to show what values we would like to see reflected in ourselves during Year Six