Year 6 students from Sydney Catholic primary schools have collectively spent more than 17,800 hours this year helping their school and parish communities as part of the Pope Francis Awards.

The effort is the equivalent of 106 weeks, or more than two full years, of volunteering and almost triple the 6,367 hours students collectively spent to qualify for their awards in 2018.

The students have visited nursing homes, assisted with technology and music at mass, and led playground cleanup initiatives and school fundraising drives in their own time to receive the award, which asks students to do at least 20 hours of volunteer service split between their parish and school.

They realise the best gift you can give someone is your time.

Cheryl Fernandez, a youth ministry leader at Sydney Catholic Schools, said participation in the program had more than tripled since the program pilot in 2017 that involved 220 students from 17 schools. This year, 696 students have taken part in the award from 63 schools.

“It started with students from Years 5 and 6, then in 2018 it became for Year 6 students only because we found it tied in better with their leadership programs,” Ms Fernandez said.

“It was a way to acknowledge the volunteer hours many students already do, establish a link between them and their parish and help them to know what voluntary service is all about.

“Once they start doing the voluntary work they develop a love for it and the people involved, so a lot of students keep going. I think also that they realise the best gift you can give someone is your time. That becomes a real focus for them.”

Good Shepherd Catholic Primary School Hoxton Park Year 6 student Damien Nakhla led the charge, completing 403 hours of service. He is …

Re-working the look and identity of an entire school requires a lot of thinking and discussion.

Uniforms, teaching methods, student wellbeing policies and even physical spaces will all require adjustments. And if the school being remodelled is a Sydney Catholic school, all of these elements will be influenced by a unique spiritual component – a school’s charism.

During the process of announcing Marist Catholic College North Sydney, charism was a frequent topic of discussion.

The new school will combine St Mary’s Catholic Primary School North Sydney and Marist College North Shore to form a K-12 educational precinct, and the college’s charism will be key to every element of its identity. Currently, the two schools celebrate different spiritualities.

“We’ve got four charisms – Josephite, Marist, Mercy and Jesuit,” said St Mary’s Principal Beverly Coffey. “Children like variety, and each one has a different focus and strength you can use to develop the children’s understanding of their faith journey.”

Marist North Shore Principal Tony Duncan feels equally strong about his school’s Marist spirituality.

“It helps us to have a good story to connect our students with Jesus Christ and our boys identify with it,” he said.

The process of settling on a spirituality for the re-modelled school, and the thought that went into the choice, is testament to the important role charisms still play in shaping the religious spirit and educational practice of many Sydney Catholic schools.

A spirituality can offer students an example to follow, help them reach out to the poor, give them and staff a common goal, and create a rich school culture.

An earthly example

Many Catholic families will be intimately acquainted with the concept of charism. They may have a personal or family charism that guides their spiritual practice, or they may have attended a secondary school with a strong spirituality that they still feel connected to. …