With Christ at our side to guide us,
we shine in all that we do.
The Mini Vinnies and the children of St Bede’s wanted to help people in the local community by supporting the Key to Life Foodbank (an operation providing emergency food and support to people in crisis across South Tyneside) with their Halloween Appeal – Donate If You Dare – to Scare Hunger way!
The families of St Bede’s have been extremely generous in their donations. Here are the Mini Vinnies with the food collected.
A huge thank you to everyone for your kindness!
After school today, the Mini Vinnies enjoyed a lovely visit to our church to have a ‘Behind the scenes’ tour with Father Bill.
The children had a more detailed look around St Bede’s Church, looking at the Sanctuary, the Sacred Heart Altar, Our Lady’s Altar, the statues, Font, Paschal Candle, the Stations of the Cross images, and the beautiful stained glass windows.
Father Bill then showed us the beautiful stained glass windows of the 7 Sacraments – Baptism, Eucharist, Reconciliation, Confirmation, Marriage, Holy Orders and Anointing of the Sick. Here are 6 of the windows as one of them is best seen from the Choir loft.
The children were very eager to go upstairs into the Choir Loft so were very fortunate to visit that too, getting an amazing view of the church from that vantage point.
The children ended their tour with a visit to the chapel at the back of church, the Sacristy where the Priest and Altar Servers get ready, the Confessional and were lucky enough to see a small relic from the original cross of Christ.
Father Bill, thank you so much for the tour and for answering our many questions! We’ll definitely visit again with our other Mini Vinnies group and other classes from school.
The St Vincent de Paul (SVP) Society has some availability for children in Years 5 and 6 to attend their annual summer camp at Holy Island. The camp has been running on Holy Island for approximately 70 years. While weeks 1 and 2 are now full, there are places for weeks 3, 5 and 6 of the upcoming summer break. It will be a fantastic experience – some of our teachers even attended the camp when they were in school!
An information poster is available to download here – Holy Island Vinnie Camp
Please click here to view their website.
Application forms can be made using the above link, however, if you have any further queries, please contact SVP directly or speak to Mrs Kennedy when in school.
On May 1st, we held our May Procession in honour of Mary. The Mini Vinnies led the celebration, with children from each class bringing flowers to place in the vases on the focal point dedicated to Mary. The children shared a reading, prayers, a litany, sang some beautiful hymns, and one of the children crowned Mary with a lovely garland of flowers.
The Mini Vinnies enjoyed an Upcycling Bunting event on Tuesday when they were visited by Laura from the Waste & Recycling Education Centre. This year is the 10th anniversary of the Visitor Education Centre opening and 10 years since household waste has been recycled and not sent to landfill.
The children learnt about the work of the Waste & Recycling Centre and got to reuse some material themselves when Laura brought in squares of fabric to decorate with other scrap fabric pieces to make some beautiful, coloured bunting. This will be displayed at the anniversary event in June.
Here they are making their creations:
The Mini Vinnies hosted a coffee morning today after Palm Sunday Mass.
There was a Tombola stall, a delicious Cale Sale and the Mini Vinnies sold bookmarks they’d made as well as Stations of the Cross booklets in which they’d produced the beautiful artwork.
The Mini Vinnies were brilliant and the morning was a huge success – they raised £166.57 for the St Vincent de Paul Society.
Everyone had a fantastic day! Well done Mini Vinnies and a big thank you to the parents and staff who supported the event too!
On Friday 23rd February it was CAFOD Family Fast Day. St Bede’s families showed their commitment to helping people in the local community and further afield, by generously supporting our Lenten appeal to help us help those less fortunate than ourselves.
Children donated tins of food to the Key to Life Foodbank (an operation providing emergency food and support to people in crisis across South Tyneside) as well as donating money to CAFOD (Catholic Aid for Overseas Development), one of the largest networks in the world, helping some of the poorest and marginalised people in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.
We collected over £50 in monetary donations and a wealth of food products for the Key to Life Foodbank. As you can see by the photographs of our Mini Vinnies with our food donations, together we make a huge difference!
The Mini Vinnies hosted their first coffee morning today after Mass. The children made some delicious cakes and brought in some great prizes for the Tombola stall.
After setting up the church hall in preparation for the coffee morning, the Mini Vinnies attended Mass and then were put to work! The morning was a huge success, with the Mini Vinnies raising £134.42 towards repairs for the church roof.
Everyone had a fantastic day and Fr Bill was thrilled with the money raised! Well done Mini Vinnies!!!
In the Autumn term, we asked for children to volunteer to become Mini Vinnies. We were astounded by the huge number of applications received from our KS2 children. It was so difficult to choose between the thoughtful applications of those children wanting to make a difference in their community, so, with over 40 applications, we decided to run 2 Mini Vinnies’ groups. Here they are being commissioned today.
The Mini Vinnies made Christmas cards for people in the parish.
© 2025 Bishop Chadwick Catholic Education Trust.
