How to Navigate Massuot For Year 6 (2024/5)
Based on feedback from those who have experienced Massuot in recent years, we have restructured the Massuot programme so that now, your Year 6 will look quite different!
Year 6 CLaL (Community Life and Learning)
Your Massuot is a Shabbat-based programme. The brand new Year 6 CLaL sessions are every Friday evening in term time, running from 5.20pm to 6.20pm and finishing in time for a short break before the Kabbalat Shabbat service.
The CLaL sessions are learning sessions just for Year 6s to allow them to get to know each other as well as to explore a range of Jewish themes and educational topics, helping them to forge their own Jewish identities as they move towards their B'nei Mitzvah.
The programme also includes Friday night chavurah dinners and, as always, Shabbat service attendance, for which you will collect a nitzotz for your passport.
Year 7 CLaL (Community Life and Learning)
In Year 7, your regular Massuot commitment will be CLaL sessions on a Saturday morning. Year 7 CLaL happens weekly during term time, from 10.30am-12.30pm, and is for Year 7s and an accompanying adult. Sessions are taught by our education team and are a place to think together about what it means to be a Reform Jew in the 21st Century. They will include topics such as God and Prayer, what people wear to synagogue, Shabbat, Israel, and other topics that may be useful on your journey. Each Saturday, the morning will be split between being in a learning session together and going to join the Shacharit service, so that we can feel comfortable and at home in Shabbat services as well as getting to see what your role will be when it comes to your own B'nei Mitzvah.
It is important for CLaL sessions in year 7 that each B’nei Mitzvah student is accompanied by an adult. This could be a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, or trusted family friend. We truly believe that the journey to becoming B’nei Mitzvah is more meaningful and fun when actively supported by your family. For this reason, we look forward to welcoming children and adults together to sessions and services.
Friday Group
At some point during Year 7, roughly nine academic months before your B’nei Mitzvah, you will begin Friday Group. This is weekly, during term time, on a Friday night from 5.10pm to 6.25pm so that we can then go into the Kabbalat Shabbat service that starts at 6.30pm. For more information on Friday Group, click here.
Mitzvah Project
Your Mitzvah Project is an opportunity to think about how you want to engage in the world around you, as you approach Jewish adulthood. What difference do you want to make to the world? What is important to you, that you would like to have a positive impact on?
Through sessions with our youth worker, Maya, you will come up with a plan for your very own Mitzvah Project. These sessions are the only optional part of the programme, and if you already have an idea for your project, and support from those around you to carry it out, you do not need to attend. Otherwise, we will welcome you for 1 hour, afterschool during term times – the dates for these will be shared in Year 7.
Carrying out a Mitzvah Project is an important, and mandatory, part of the preparation for your B’nei Mitzvah.
Year 8
You will continue with Friday Group, up to and including the Shabbat that you will be celebrating your own B’nei Mitzvah!
Due to the additional demands on the time for our Year 8s, and how often they typically visit other synagogues to celebrate their friends’ B’nei Mitzvah, our Year 8 programme moves away from a Shabbat-centred model.
In Year 8, you will go on trips and outings as a year group (Year 8s only), and these will be roughly ½ termly on Sundays.
As with the entirety of Massuot, each year includes Chavurah dinners and other opportunities to get involved in the community side of FRS life.
After your B’nei Mitzvah
Once you have celebrated your own B’nei Mitzvah, you might be wondering what’s next! We encourage all Year 8s to come to the trips and outings throughout the year, regardless of whether you have had your B’nei Mitzvah yet or not. Additionally, once you have finished at Friday Group as a pupil, you will be invited to Helper Training where you can learn all you’ll need to take on a pupil of your own.
There will be a celebration towards the end of the year of all the Mitzvah Projects, with a Chavurah supper afterwards. We use this opportunity to celebrate everything that everyone has achieved throughout Massuot.
In Year 9, you’ll also be invited to Hadracha training, where you’ll get to learn how to be one of our famously beloved madrichimot, helping out on Schemes, Kochavim, and other youth activities!
