Students, staff, parents and friends of Richard Challoner School enjoyed a highly emotive, celebratory Challoner Day Mass at St George’s Cathedral in Southwark last week.

This year attendance at the traditional Challoner Day event was the highest ever, with over thirteen hundred people. The event has become an intrinsic part of the Challoner calendar and provides the school community the opportunity to formally mark the birthday of Bishop Richard Challoner (an inspirational Bishop after whom the school was named), starting the celebration with a powerful Mass in St George’s Cathedral.

The Principal Celebrant was Canon Gerard Bradley and, in his sermon, he talked about the importance of getting to know God, the Gospels and the inspiring facets of the Catholic faith in a personal and meaningful way, just as many students would do with their sporting heroes, for example. Canon Bradley also linked this to the fact that Bishop Challoner felt passionately and devoted much of his time to updating the language of the English Catholic Bible, so that this would be more easily understood by ordinary people.

The powerful music throughout the Mass was performed by over seventy students and staff, and managed for the first time by Mr Alex Leach, Subject Lead for Music, who commented: “The singing was exceptional this year from all involved, and I am honoured to have held the reigns of the choir. I am especially thankful to the members of staff who led sectionals and to all the choir members who sacrificed their time at lunch and after school for rehearsals.”

Reflecting on the special event, Mr Sean Maher, the school’s Head, said: “There could have been no more fitting way to mark the start of our 65th anniversary as a school than bringing our whole community together at St George’s Cathedral for Holy Mass. I hope former headteachers, staff and alumni were looking down on us and seeing that the foundational traditions and values from 1959 are still reflected in the Challoner community today. It certainly felt like an uplifting and worthy occasion”.

The Challoner Day celebration was organised with meticulous attention to detail by Mr Neil D’Aguiar, the School Chaplain, who ensured that over a thousand students, irrespective of any additional difficulties, were attentively supported throughout the event by high levels of staff. Numerous compliments were given to staff about the “impeccable behaviour” of the students travelling on public transport.

Commenting on how the day had gone, Mr D’Aguiar reflected:

“The warmness and the enthusiasm we experienced today was like nothing I have felt before. Everyone was genuinely happy to be there and wanted to enjoy their day. This could be seen from former staff members and students discretely turning up at the back of the Cathedral, to students in their first or last years at the school, and even to year 10 students who were left sitting behind a pillar, they all wanted to fully experience the day and share in an event that symbolises how lucky we are to live, work and study at this school.”