Heartfest 6

In September a group of Year 8 Kairos and Goals students from went on a residential retreat to Newcastle. We met with students from four other Sacred Heart schools - Sacred Heart Fenham (primary and secondary school), Sacred Heart Roehampton (Primary school) and Sacred Heart Woldingham (Secondary school).

After a long train journey to northern England, we arrived in Newcastle and began with some fun games to help us relax and get to know each other, including Jocky Up, World Conquer, and Heads or Tails. While all the schools were great, personally, we think    Hammersmith was the best but...    

Afterwards, we were shown to our rooms and then thankfully, we enjoyed a lovely dinner - we were all starving by then.

In the evening, we were all tired from the long day of travel so happily went straight to bed.

The following morning, we started off the day with some lively and fun activities like giant Jenga and karaoke. We even did some singing and sign language to the song ‘Our Father’. 

Throughout the retreat, all the students participated in multiple team building games such as one where we had to each pass on what we saw, then heard and then draw it. Some of the more    calming activities included bracelet making, prayer writing and other arts and crafts which were equally nice. One of the most popular activities was the Escape Room where we had to complete tasks in order to receive bible quotes and numbers to crack open the padlock and escape before dinner.

On the last day we all received our HeartFest T-shirts which were all matching! Sacred Heart Hammersmith and Woldingham were invited to visit Fenham High while Sacred Heart, Roehampton went off to visit Fenham Primary. We were given a tour around the school and it was interesting to see how their classes were organised differently to ours. We did however notice some of the similarities in the      exterior and interior of the school. After the tour we attended a liturgy, where some of us participated in the ‘Our Father’ sign language song. At the end of the service, we were each given a biscuit in the shape of Sacred Heart’s logo. They were delicious!

We said goodbye to our new friends and the wonderful HeartFest team and made our way back to Hammersmith. 

Throughout HeartFest, we celebrated 50 years of the Sacred Heart Goals, focusing on a different goal each day and doing activities   relating to them. We felt we learned the most about the goal of Community, as we reflected a lot on how we were all one big Sacred Heart family. We all made new friends with students for the different schools, learned their names and about their backgrounds, and felt united as a community.

Finally we were commissioned into the first Sacred Heart Schools and College Network, we were so proud to be the first people to do so.  HeartFest 6 was an amazing and wonderful experience for everyone and we would love to go back after having a lovely time!

Thank you HeartFest!