Ampleforth College

Each student also takes part in an annual retreat with their own year group; this retreat offers students a chance to experience school and each other in a different light – to think about their faith, to deepen their prayer and to review their lives. 

The third year and top year retreats were in Whitby in February, organised by the Chileans and involved groups for Lectio, times for quiet reflection and for talking and walking either on the beach or around Whitby Abbey. The Remove took the theme of ‘witness’ and the U6th the theme of ‘mission’. These were both inspiring and prayerful days.

The second year retreat once again went to the Lady Chapel in Osmotherley in May to experience of different types of prayer, such as Stations of the Cross, Adoration, the Rosary and Lectio, finishing off with Mass in the ruins of the Carthusian priory at Mt Grace.  The Middle Sixth retreat in June took students out of the ‘Ampleforth bubble’  by organising small groups to visit different examples of Christian service, such as Prison chaplaincies, Hospices, the Apostleship of the Sea, Cheshire Homes, Botton village, Boston Spa school for the Deaf and Madonna House.

In June the Middle Sixth focused for their retreat on the call to Service by visiting , the Fifth form went to the Lady Chapel at Osmotherley to experience different kinds of prayer, and the Fourth form, divided into twelve tribes for a rambling pilgrimage to Gilling, compared their first year in the school with the Exodus of the Israelites.