Our LiveSimply registration certificate marks the beginning of our school’s commitment to live simply, live sustainably and live in solidarity with others. By registering our action plan with CAFOD, we pledged to put our faith into action through meaningful activities involving our children, staff, families, parish and wider community.

Our LiveSimply journey reflects Catholic Social Teaching and our school mission: “To do the little things well and to do them with love.” Through our actions, we aim to care for God’s creation, support people in need and make choices that help build a fairer and more loving world.

Our Prayer Garden: Prayer, Creation and Community

Our beautiful prayer garden was imagined and designed by two of our creative and green-fingered teaching assistants, Miss Baron and Miss Goldthorpe. Their vision has transformed part of our playground into a peaceful outdoor space where children can pray, reflect, encounter God in creation and spend time together.

At the heart of the garden are a cross-shaped planter, a statue of our patron, St Thérèse of Lisieux, and a beautiful large cross that was made and hand-painted especially for the space. Children who attend our Butterfly Room helped to plant and care for the flowers, enabling them to make a meaningful contribution to the garden’s development.

Father Swanson blessed our prayer garden, dedicating it as a special place of prayer and reflection for our whole school community. Children have already used the garden during our Mission Day prayer stations, where they spent time in quiet reflection and considered how they could live out our mission through prayer, love and service.

Care for creation and sustainability have been considered throughout the project. The cross planter was constructed from recycled wood, while stones saved from the entrances of our former boys’ and girls’ school buildings have been incorporated into the area. These stones preserve an important connection with the history of St Theresa’s while being given a new purpose within our prayer garden.

We have also worked in partnership with Retro Chimps, who created signs for the prayer garden using recycled wood. They have supported other projects within school too, including our buddy bench and resources used during Golden Box Prayer and Scripture storytelling.

The prayer garden complements our existing orchard and orchard garden, where plants and flowers have been carefully selected to support bees, butterflies and other pollinators. Together, these spaces encourage children to appreciate the beauty of God’s creation and understand their responsibility to protect and care for it.

This work forms an important part of our registered LiveSimply Action Plan. It supports our commitments to develop an outdoor spiritual space with pupil involvement, use our school grounds more sustainably and increase pollinator-friendly planting and biodiversity. As the garden continues to develop, children will contribute through planting, creating prayer stones, writing prayers and sharing prayer with our school, families, parish and wider community.

Our prayer garden brings together faith, creativity, wellbeing, sustainability and service. It is a living expression of our school mission:

“To do the little things well and to do them with love.”

Funding and Future Developments

Miss Baron and Miss Goldthorpe have continued to develop this work by successfully securing support and funding for several exciting projects.

From January to June 2027, our school will participate in the Royal Horticultural Society’s Plants for Wellbeing programme. Increasing evidence demonstrates the positive difference that connecting with plants and nature can make to pupil wellbeing. The programme will provide training, resources and practical support to help us embed plants into everyday school life. Indoor plants will be introduced into every classroom, where children will help to care for them and learn about the responsibility involved in nurturing living things. Recycled-wood planters are also being constructed for each class.

Through the Bulbs4Kids project, we will receive 500 mixed flower bulbs, trowels and planting information. Children will have opportunities to plant and care for the bulbs, spend time outdoors and learn about their origins and growing cycles. The flowers will also provide valuable food and habitats for pollinators. We also accessed this resource in 2025 and our children loved planting the bulbs in our school grounds!

We have also secured Bold in Nature funding, which will help pupils and staff make the most of our outdoor areas. This project will explore how we can encourage wildlife, rejuvenate our pond area and create further opportunities for children to investigate their surroundings. Through direct involvement, children will develop a greater understanding of biodiversity and the impact their choices can have on the environment.

Together, these projects will turn our commitment to wellbeing, stewardship and care for creation into a practical whole-school approach.