The Website of St. Cassian's Centre, Kintbury

A large part of our work at St Cassian's is concerned with providing retreat experiences for students in Years 10, 11 and Sixth Form in Schools and Sixth Form Colleges.

Each year over 2,000 young people, mostly aged 15-18, spend two or three days at Kintbury on a School retreat. These young people come from over 60 schools across England and Wales, and almost without exception they value the opportunity they have for a few days' space in their busy lives to look at what really matters to them. Indeed, many return for a second or third visit. We have every confidence that, if you enter fully into what we have to offer, you will not be disappointed.

We usually operate two retreats each week during term-time:

• one begins with supper at 6.30 pm on Monday and ends about 11.30 am on Thursday
• the other begins at 6.30 pm on Thursday and ends about 11.30 am on Sunday.

The programme for both is identical. Although we want your stay here to be relaxing, and it will include some free time, it is a retreat. The hope for our retreat programme is that it will help you:

• to get to know and understand yourself better, and to appreciate yourself more
• to see better how to get on with other people in your life, and to improve this
• to make new friends with students from the other schools that will be here with you
• to appreciate more the place of God in our world and in your life.

The programme is Christian in content and includes:

• celebrating our faith together, through prayer and worship (usually the celebration of the Eucharist)
• the presentation of ideas for you to think about and discuss
• working in groups.

Some schools prefer Monday to Thursday (students do not miss their weekend jobs, staff do not have to be away over the weekend), others prefer Thursday to Sunday (students and staff miss less school) – it depends on the age-group of the students and the circumstances of each school.

The Autumn and Spring Terms are mostly Year 11 and Sixth Form Retreats, and the Summer Term is most Year 10 retreats.

We can accommodate about 50 students and their accompanying staff. Because we consider that a mix of school sis an important part of the retreat, we usually offer 12 places to each of up to four schools. We do sometimes make different arrangements, however, so do contact us if you have other requirements.

Accompanying adults are requested to undertake the supervision of the students at night time and to have some pastoral care of them. It is therefore essential for the adults to reflect the male-female balance of the students, although sometimes adults from one school are willing to supervise a very small number of students from another.

Schools are encouraged to bring lay chaplains and priest chaplains with them. We do not have a resident priest, and so we have to rely either on accompanying priest chaplains or local priests for the celebration of Mass.

From September 2008 we will be charging £82 per student, with free places for up to two accompanying staff.

If you are a teacher or chaplain in a school or college and wish to know more about bringing a group here for a retreat, and to find out which dates are available, please do make contact with us.