April 2025

Easter Workshops

This week, Andi and Berno from Bransgore Community Church and a team of School Governors and volunteers have come into school to help the children understand more about elements of the Easter Story.

In small groups, children moved around each of the six stations: Triumphant Entry, Last Supper, Gethsemane, The Cross, The Resurrection and Ascension. Each station focused on our school Christian Values: Compassion, Reverence and Friendship and aspects of spiritual growth through our four concepts.

The aim of the workshops were:

• for children to experience a joy of Collective Worship which is inclusive, engaging, creative and varied, provoking thought and inspiring children’s interaction.
• To develop personal spirituality within the school community through a range of experiences including individual and collective prayer.
• To engage pupils and adults with Collective Worship, making it relevant and transformational to the lives of members of the whole school community.
• To facilitate a deeper understanding of the Christian story narrative from creation to the present day.

On Thursday, we walked to Saint Luke's Church for our whole School Collective Worship which was led by the Spirituality Champions.

The theme of our Easter Collective Worship was ‘God’s love for us all.’ We learnt about a verse in the book of Matthew 3:16, which states, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”   

Prayers

Our Christmas Collective Worship at Saint Luke's Church - 20/12/24

Our Remembrance Collective Worship was led by the Spirituality Champions and was followed by a two-minute silence on 11.11.24.

In this year's Harvest Festival Collective Worship, we considered where our food comes from before reaching the supermarket.   We learnt about how Harvest is a time to remember and celebrate all the wonderful things we have to eat – especially things which come from Earth which farmers have cared for and grown in the soil.  

Christians (and people from other faiths) believe the world was created by God and belongs to God. The Bible says: "The Earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it...’"(Psalm 24:1).  God made all the different varieties of fruit, vegetables and grains, not for him to keep, but for us to enjoy and to give us all the nutrients we need to live and be healthy. So, all the lovely things we eat and enjoy are a gift from God. As human beings, we have been given the special responsibility of looking after what we’ve been given and making the most of it.  

In the Bible, there are some really good rules which God wanted his people to follow. One was to be good stewards of the Earth – a bit like gardeners looking after a garden. He didn’t want people to just use the Earth however they wanted to, but to take care of it.  

The other rule God told his people was when they gathered in all the crops they had grown at Harvest time, and how they should leave all the crops which have fallen around the edges of the field for the poor, the orphans and the widows, instead of collecting all of it for themselves. This was a way of helping them not to be greedy but to share with others and make sure that everyone had enough. These rules were given to people a long time ago, but they are still important for us to remember today. 

Some prayers  from our KS1 Spirituality Champions:

Oliver: Dear God, thank you for the Harvest. Amen. 

Eddie: Dear God, thank you for Harvest. Amen. 

Willow: Dear God, thank you for the Harvest. I would love it if everyone didn’t ever waste food. Amen 

Hetty: Dear God, thank you for all of the food we eat and enjoy.  Amen 

Henry: Dear God, thank you for the food we eat and for Harvest festivals. Amen