Religious Education
Welcome to the Church of Our Saviour Religious Education Program. As an international English speaking Roman Catholic Church in The Hague, we have parishioners from many countries who come to worship and learn. We have been given the opportunity to help strengthen families and pass on faith by learning together what it means to be Catholic. Parents who have enrolled children in the program have shown a commitment to their child’s faith life; the commitment they accepted at their Baptism. By working together, and supporting one another’s efforts, we can assist parents in keeping that commitment.
What is Religious Education?
We offer a religious education program for children from 5 to 13 years of age. We use the Sadlier “We Believe” program which was developed by nationally recognized experts in catechesis curriculum, and child development. These teachers of the faith and practitioners helped to frame every lesson to be age appropriate and appealing. Over the years, the RC Parish Church of Our Saviour’s respected catechetical, liturgical, pastoral, and theological experts have shared their insights and inspired the development of this RE program to make it what it is today.
Where and when do Religious Education classes take place?
Classes meet during the school year after the Sunday morning Masses. Class starts at 11:15 and ends at 12:00. Our classrooms are on the first floor off of the church’s atrium. When planning the religious education school year calendar, we take into account the vacation breaks of the American School of the Hague, The British School of the Netherlands, the International and European Schools of the Hague as well as the Dutch school-year calendars.
The RE calendar for 2022/2023 can be found at the bottom of this page.
Download the RE calendar here.
Who is Religious Education for?
The Church of Our Saviour offers religious education for ages 5 (kindergarten) through 13 (pre-Confirmation) for children of parishioners. The second grade class includes preparation for First Holy Communion. Confirmation preparation is a separate program for youth aged 14 and older.
What are the fees for Religious Education and First Holy Communion?
Registration for RE 2022-2023 is open on July 1st and classes begin on October 2nd.
The cost for religious education (grades kindergarten, first, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and pre-Confirmation) is €100 per child. If you are registering a child for First Holy Communion (second grade), the fee is €150.
Who leads the Religious Education classes?
Our catechist volunteers assist families with the teaching of their children about God and the Catholic faith. Their dedication and commitment to build the church community, to encourage worship and prayer, and to motivate service in the children is a tremendous undertaking and responsibility. During the religious education school year that will consist of 20 classes, we need over 30 volunteer teachers to lead 8 grades of students.
Help Us
Restarting our RE program after last years cancellation of RE due to the corona virus will give us a challenge because we need to rebuild our team of volunteers. If you are enrolling your child in our RE program, please volunteer to help out in some capacity!
RE Teacher Volunteers – We welcome all volunteers with all skill sets and endeavor to place our volunteers in the age group they would prefer to teach. By combining your skills with one or two more volunteer teachers for a class it helps to lighten the workload of teaching throughout the school year. We try to pair experienced volunteer teachers with our less experienced volunteers. We find that assigning 2 to 3 teachers for a class helps to accommodate any business and leisure travel needs of our RE volunteers. We provide our teachers with a leader’s guide that outlines each chapter covered in the children’s workbooks and offers the teachers various options including music, crafts and interactive activities to make teaching each chapter easy while creating a fun and interesting learning experience for the child.
Safety Volunteers – Safety and security is very important at the Church of Our Saviour. Keeping this in mind, we are also in need of safety volunteers. These important members of our RE team help to monitor the doors leading up to our classrooms to ensure that no unauthorized people are allowed up to the classroom areas. The safety team are also there to help evacuate the classrooms should an emergency arise. The safety team volunteers, generally speaking, are scheduled to help out once or twice in a month when we have RE classes.
If you are interested in volunteering for one of these rewarding jobs, please complete the volunteer section of the RE application or contact the RE Coordinator at religiouseducation@parish.nl.
All of our volunteers are required to complete a background check (VOG).
