Confirmation Year marks one of the most important years in primary school for every child. It is a year characterised by considerable excitement, challenge and hard work. In particular, it is characterised by enormous growth and development in many different ways: physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual. This souvenir scrapbook reflects this development and provides many opportunities for children to express their thoughts and feelings, and to focus in a concrete way on the important issues in their lives.

A number of the topics are directly related to what the child will be learning in school, as part of preparation for Confirmation. Others encourage the children to reflect on developments and occasions in their lives, past, present and future. The book provides opportunities for the children to reflect on and examine themselves as individuals, their relationships with others and with Christ, and the challenges and possibilities that lie ahead.

As with all aspects of parenting, the support and security provided by parental involvement is crucial to the child’s sense of development and self-esteem. You can contribute to this process in a very positive way by helping the child to work through the scrapbook in any way you can; by talking about the issues that arise, commenting on how the work is progressing and providing resources as required. If you do this, the end result will be a treasured memento which your child will keep for many years to come, long after Confirmation.

For the teacher, this book is intended as a classroom resource, flexible and non-prescriptive in nature. Each pupil can stamp his or her personality on the book with the use of colour. At the end of the year, each scrapbook will be as individual as its owner. A number of blank pages have been included at the back of the book for work to be prescribed at the teachers discretion. Similarly, the empty spaces on many pages are intended for the pupils own artwork or photographs, cuttings etc., at the teachers discretion. I hope the souvenir scrapbook will serve as a constructive way for teachers to provide a means for children to focus on the issues and topics that matter, and to be a vehicle for making Confirmation Year as relevant, as meaningful and as memorable in the lives of the pupils as it deserves to be.