When it's announced that the Pope will be saying a Beatification Mass for their town's heroine, Sister Sarah Smith, all the local Catholic schools are pressed into service. Miss Maybely, Religious Education teacher at St Jude's, is rushed off her feet preparing for the Pope's arrival.

But the only pupils Miss Maybely can bribe to participate in the mass are a delinquent group of Year Ten students who'd find it hard to get a GCSE between them, let alone one each. Yet together they must pull off the greatest honour ever bestowed on the school.

When tragedy throws their plans into disarray, the children take charge. Breaking all the rules of convention, they discover qualities in themselves that nobody else knew they had. But can Miss Maybely discover her true calling during this process? If those who can, do, and those who can't, teach, what do those who no longer teach do?