Our Community

As the parish church, we try to be an inclusive community for the town of Brentwood, Essex

Bellringers

Our Band

Currently (Nov. 2021) we are a small band of ringing members, both male and female, with ages ranging from teenager to near octogenarian.

Service Ringing and Practice Evenings

Our main weekly commitment is to ring from 9.30am before the 10.00am Mass on Sundays. In addition once a month we endeavor to ring on a Sunday evening from 5.00pm before the 6.00pm Evensong Service.

Practices are on Thursday evenings between 7.30 and 9.00pm when ringers from other local towers are welcome to join us and get the opportunity to ring on eight bells.

Interested in joining us?

For more information on how you can join the team, please contact Chris Bailey at c.bailey697@btinternet.com

Taster and teaching sessions can be arranged.

We ring for other significant national and local celebrations and memorials. To find out more as well as the full history of our bells, visit our bellringers page here.

Church Schools

We are proud at the high standards set at both St Thomas’ / Becket Keys Schools

St Thomas’ Junior School

Building a school with a distinctive Christian character

Becket Keys Secondary School

A school where each child is recognised as an individual, emerging adult and has their needs met in a school where faith is valued and central to daily life.

School Admissions

We enjoy close links with the Church Schools situated within our parish and you can find our more about their work and witness by clicking on the buttons below. The clergy regularly lead collective worship in our schools and celebrate the Mass with them either in school or in St Thomas and we value working with our young people as we help them develop their relationship with God through worship and prayer.

For many, this developing relationship brings them to seek confirmation, and confirmation classes are run within our Junior School after Easter preparing children of Years 5 and 6 for this significant step in their Christian lives

Like many schools with a distinctive Christian character, all our parish church schools have specific admission criteria and we encourage prospective parents to check these details carefully via the schools’ websites as these criteria can change. Details of how and when to hand in SIFs are communicated at the appropriate time of the year.

Admission criteria of some sort apply to all local Church of England schools and most ask for details of parents’ attendance and commitment to the life of the church community such as helping with the Clubhouse, fund raising events or being involved with the liturgy as servers, readers or bellringers.

If you need to prove attendance at St Thomas for the purposes of school admission please contact the Parish Administrator or one of the clergy so that you can be shown how to use our bio-metric scanner that we use to keep a register of attendance at every act of worship.

Friends of St Thomas’

The Friends of St Thomas’ is a team of members from the congregation, ranging from young woring mums to church wardens, who work together to promote a sense of community within St Thomas’ and to ensure a warm welcome to the wider community.

We host regular events most months ranging from an extended community time after Mass on a Sunday, through large scale colouring projects, cake sales, treasure hunts, gin tasting to a youth concert involving our church schools and an annual beer festival.

St Thomas’ Music Foundation

The St Thomas’ Music Foundation is the body responsible for all music within the church.

Formed of choirs, orchestras, small singing groups, and music enthusiasts, it is an excellent introduction to the music at the church.

You can find out more here.

The Clubhouse

The Clubhouse is a new Sunday School which started in September 2019.Our objectives are to create a community amongst the children with some shared activities as well as activities split by ages.

At the Clubhouse, our aim is to encourage children to: