St David's Day 2022
Yesterday, March 01 we celebrate St David’s Day, patron saint of Wales and our schools name sake.
Years 5 & 6 gathered this morning in the Minstrel Hall with the rest of the school joining us online via Teams due to Covid precautions. Our Chaplin Mr. Edward Gray opened the assembly taking us through what this day means and why we celebrate it.
After the introduction by Mr Gray, our pupil Rowan has read us a poem in Welsh called Rhyfel (war) by Hedd Wyn, followed by the translation in English.
After this beautiful and deep moment, we came to our Leek Competition. Representatives from Wales, England, Scotland, and Ireland were challenged to eat a piece of leek as quickly as they could. Mr Russell our Headmaster representing Scottland, our deputy Headmaster Mr Delaney representing Wales, Zachary Valentine out Head Boy representing Ireland and Tim Hall, the old Chaplin representing England. All where did very well with Zac finishing his piece first – well done Ireland!
After the competition, Tim Hall stayed to show us some of his daffodils grown on site. Tim talked about the daffodil being the symbol of Wales and St David’s Day and reminded us of the simple beauty of nature and how we can contribute to it’s glow.
Tim left and let us with our leek competition winner, Zac, who read a beautiful verse from the bible, “The spirit of the Lord is on me”, written 800 years before Christ and the he read himself to the apostles saying “that was speaking already about me”.
And to finish we learnt about Wales and our Chaplin Mr Gray came back to teach us about St David’s Day and St David himself.
Mr Gray hightlited the importance of doing the little things in life but also the things St Davids did, in which keep the faith and spread the lord’s word are the base. St David’s College we aim to continue his labour and encourage each of our pupils to follow his path.
We finish this beautiful moment with a prayer:
Father God,
We thank you for the faith of St David.
We thank you for the freedoms and peace we have here in Wales.
We pray again for the people of Ukrain and for peace to be restored.
We pray we would look at the likfe of St David and imitate him.
We pray we would imitate the “little thing” he did in life and in faith.
We pray for our week ahead, watch over us and keep us safe we pray.
In Jesus’name.
Amen