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.  In 2009 two year group retreats were held in Whitby for the Remove and the Upper Sixth, which involved both monks and lay staff, Chileans and university students in challenging and encouraging the boys and girls to discuss and deepen their faith. In June the Middle Sixth focused for their retreat in Alban Roe House on the call to Service, 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.

These form part of an overall programme which has included retreats for parents on Saturday mornings, on adapting the Rule of St Benedict to family life, and retreats for sixth form students, on sharing the life of the monastery for 24hrs.   There was also an induction retreat for new staff at the beginning of the new year.