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The Schools Singing Programme (SSP) in our Diocese, offered by our two full-time Choral Directors, Fraser Ellson and Billie Robson, has had another successful half term.

The Diocese launched its Schools Singing Programme in 2023, inspired by the model originally developed by the Diocese of Leeds. Through the SSP, the Diocese is able to deliver outstanding singing tuition, music education and performance opportunities to children and young people attending state primary schools in Sussex and Surrey, with expert guidance and tuition provided by the Choral Directors.

Highlights of the term have included the beautiful "candlelit" processions that schools participated in around the time of the new feast of Our Lady of Walsingham (24 September), including children in Year 4 at St Bernadette’s Catholic Primary School in Brighton: click here to watch a video of their procession. Pupils have also learned about Blessed Carlo Acutis in the week leading up to his feast day. He is an outstanding role model for young people, and set to be canonized by Pope Francis next year.

A key aim of the Schools Singing Programme is to create opportunities for children to sing in their local parishes, to strengthen the home-school-parish link, in line with the Pastoral Plan. Bishop Richard writes that

“As key places of prayer, formation and mission, it will always be necessary for our schools to have very close relationships with the parish communities of which they are a part.”

At St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School in Brighton, an extra-curricular lunchtime choir has been formed, in time for a school Mass, at which they supported the school community’s worship by leading hymns and learning a new Mass setting, and there are plans for them to sing at their local parish church on 24 November, the Feast of Christ the King. At St Edmund’s, Godalming, a new club has been formed, the St Edmund’s Choristers, with a view to this choir hopefully helping to lead the school consistently at school Masses, including their patronal feast, and events going forward, as well as representing the school in the parish and further afield. The school choirs of St Hugh of Lincoln in Woking, and St Cuthbert’s in Englefield Green will also be singing Mass in their parishes on 23 and 24 November.

The participation of our SSP choirs in parish Masses is possible thanks both to the work of the Choral Directors and schools, and to the staff and clergy in these parishes for being so welcoming, and open to the SSP. As Fraser explains,

"The opportunity to sing at parish Masses provides a purpose and aim for the choirs... which is extremely productive, and welcome."

Advent and Carol services at St Hugh of Lincoln and St Edmund’s are this year being led and supported by the SSP, as well as the patronal feast day Mass at St Cuthbert Mayne, Cranleigh. Fraser is looking forward to engaging the children with some Advent and Christmas repertoire and helping them to lead the various schools in a communal act of worship towards Christmas. At St Hugh’s, after leading the singing at various Masses almost weekly in school, the choir has entered a regional choir competition. It is set to be an enjoyable and exhilarating event, which the children will benefit from greatly.

Also, look out for the Diocesan Education Service’s e-Christmas card this year: it will feature pupils from SSP schools singing Gaudete!

Many of our Diocesan schools already have fantastic choirs and singing groups but Fraser and Billie are always happy to discuss either joining in with what already exists or creating and running an alternative provision with a strong focus on liturgical music, to enable children from our schools to become more involved in their parish communities by offering their musical gifts to enrich the liturgy, support congregational singing, and gain invaluable skills from a role with such responsibility.