The 'School Voice' began again after a 'fallow' year last weekend (7-9 February). It saw the coming together of 4 Salesian Schools - Savio Salesian College Bootle, St. John Bosco Arts College Liverpool, Thornleigh Salesian College Bolton and Salesian College Farnborough.

The reason they come together as school councils is so that they can share their experience of their schools and to get a sense of what it means to belong to the wider Salesian family. The atmosphere from the first few icebreakers was tremendous. The young people were mixing and it was difficult for an outsider like me to guess which school they had come with!

We listened to how each of the groups had progressed within their role as councillors within the school and how they had gone about attaining this achievement. We looked at the values of communication, respect, teamwork and trust in a fun and interactive way.

In the afternoon, (as predicted by Mr Moore), it rained!! - Just as we were setting off for a walk!

In the evening after each school wrote proposals for the coming year, we had a Mass of Commitment celebrated by Fr David O'Malley SDB, which really was a great experience. The young people began the service sitting in the shape of a cross to remind us of the sacrifice of Jesus and then later on in the Mass we moved into a circle to represent the wholeness which comes from the resurrection!

In the evening Sr Gill McCambridge FMA managed to fix the Karaoke machine, a thing which Sue thanked her for profusely!! The young people had a great night 'singing' to music from the 80's and beyond. The staff were all enthused by this new beginning and Fr Jim Gallagher SDB commented on "how good it was to see a team now on this project."

A big thank you to all the schools who took part.