RE Focus:  What is Formation?

The Catholic Church defines formation as:

“lifelong growth in the knowledge, service, and love of God as followers of Christ… informed by scripture, tradition, and reason.”

But in easier to understand terms, formation is the experiences we have that help us to better understand and develop a relationship with God and with Jesus.

Religious Education within a Catholic school only addresses part of formation, it is not the whole of formation that we do. Religious Education, taught daily in classes for 30min, helps our students to build, or further develop, a knowledge of God, learning to understand about Jesus and the messages he taught throughout his life as told in the Bible.

Over the past two years, our school has worked to develop more formation opportunities for our primary classes, each with a specific focus, and led by Mr Buchtmann as our Religious Education Coordinator, to address the other two key components of formation of service and love.

Our Year 3 formation morning is entitled “Being a Witness of Jesus” and focuses on ‘faith’ and the actions they can do to make Jesus real and learn from the example of Jesus.

Our Year 4 formation morning is entitled “Service to Others” and focuses on ‘faith in action’ and leading towards our Year 4 class taking the lead for our Vinnies Winter Appeal in term 2.

Our Year 5 full day formation program is entitled “Jesus and Leadership” and focuses on becoming a school leader within our school by following the examples of Jesus.

Our Year 6 formation morning is entitled “Mary MacKillop, The Sisters of St Joseph and Our School” and focuses on the example of Mary Mackillop and the historical link to our school to then focus on our school vision and mission statements and how our Year 6 leaders “make a positive impact on society.”

Make sure to check in the newsletter throughout the year for these formation days.