Year 6 - Hinduism Workshop
Year 6 welcomed Prags into our school today, who led them in a Hinduism workshop. She was very impressed by the children’s knowledge of pilgrimages and she then spoke in more detail about a Hinduism pilgrimage. She explained how the River Ganges is sacred to Hindus and that they believe the water washes sins away. When Prags first went on this pilgrimage, she expressed how it is an emotional event and one that she will never forget. Year 6 listened attentively and showed fantastic levels of respect.
Year 1 Class Worship- Visiting the Spiritual Garden
Today, we took our worship outside for Outdoor Classroom Day. In the Spiritual Garden, we listened to and enjoyed each other’s beautiful remembrance prayers that we have each created in class. Percy said a prayer to thank soldiers for their bravery and keeping our country safe. Ida, Thomas and Mollie followed with a prayer to say thank you for our everyday heroes such as the NHS, paramedics and charity workers and Callie ended with a prayer about remembering those who lost their homes to the Great Fire of London and all the other refugees who are having to flee their homes. We ended our time in the spiritual garden by having a few moments to ourselves whilst we walked around and took in the sights and sounds of nature.
The W.O.W. Group: Creating Viewfinders
This week, the W.O.W. Group created viewfinders to help us explore the beautiful natural patterns in our spiritual garden. Over the next couple of weeks, they will be showing the other children how to spend time exploring patterns in nature and they will develop further activities from this, such as observational drawing, describing and games.
.jpeg)
Whole-School Worship: Allhallowtide
In our first collective worship of the week, Mrs Ham looked at Allhallowtide through our three spirituality lenses. Lens 1 - Windows: we looked out into the world at a photograph from Bangladesh depicting Christians gathered around graves with lit candles on them and discussed our observations and ideas about what the people were doing and how they might have felt. We had some fabulous ideas such as it must be a place of worship as they could see a cross and candles like we have in our worship, that they might be praying and that they were remembering. Lens 2 - Mirrors: we learned about All Souls’ Day and reflected on how we might remember our loved ones. The children had some lovely ideas about lighting candles and going to a special place. Lens 3 - Doors: we learned about All Saints’ Day and thought carefully about how we could be like saints. The WOW group introduced our behaviour focus for this half term , which is using good manners around school, and the children immediately put these into action by saying please and thank you, holding doors for each other, and letting people past. What a fantastic start to the new half term!
WOW group Harvest Donations to DARE (Darwen Asylum and Refugee Enterprise)
Our WOW (Worship Our Way) group would like to say a huge thank you for your generous donations to DARE (Darwen Asylum and Refugee Enterprise). Patsy from DARE came to collect the donations yesterday and sent a lovely thank you message on behalf of everyone at DARE. Thank you for your kindness and generosity as your donations will really help to make a difference to the lives of others.
Year 6 - Black History Month Worship
Year 6 took part in a worship, that schools across the country joined, to celebrate ‘Black History Month’. We discussed how we can ensure that all children feel welcome in school and explored some inspirational figures. One Individual that stood out to year 6 was Ruby Bridges. She is an American civil rights activist who attended a formerly all-white school at the age of 6. Despite having to be escorted into school and jeered at daily, she battled adversity in order to get the best possible education for herself.
WOW Group- Harvest Donations
Dear parents, Harvest is almost upon us and, this year, our wonderful WOW group have chosen to support two charities. They would like to continue to support refugees in our local area through the charity D.A.R.E. (Darwen Asylum and Refugee Enterprise) and are asking for donations of non-perishable food items, toiletries and good quality clothing. Please send these into school any time over the next week (by Thursday 17th October) and we will ensure they get to D.A.R.E. More details of the second charity we have chosen will be released shortly. Thank you, Mrs Araujo :)
The WOW Group - Our Spiritual Garden
After a great deal of hard work and creativity on the part of Mr Fairbanks and the WOW Group, the new spiritual garden was launched in Tuesday’s worship. The WOW members presented the rest of the school with ideas for using the garden as intended and in a respectful manner. Unfortunately, the garden was a bit flooded due to the heavy downpour on Monday, but we are hopeful that it can be used towards the end of the week.
The W.O.W. Group - Painting the Spiritual Garden
The W.O.W. group began the exciting task of decorating our new spiritual garden today. Crown Paints kindly donated lots of paint for our project, so we took full advantage of the sunshine and began painting the wooden punctuation symbols. Just the benches, bird tables and planters to go!
Rev Ben’s Worship
In Rev Ben’s worship, we looked at what it means to describe something and we started with a challenge: Lucy, Hamza, Poppy and Isaac had to describe something to their partner without using the chosen word or actions. Rev Ben then spoke about how God describes things to us and that the Bible speaks God’s truth. The worship was concluded by the children expressing their favourite bible stories and what they feel the purpose of the Bible is today.
W.O.W. Group - Spiritual Garden
The W.O.W. group began to see all their ideas and planning coming to fruition on Wednesday when they started work on our new spiritual garden. The area had kindly been dug out by Mr Ham and so W.O.W. got to work laying the membrane and spreading stones. They will be adding to this area each week, so keep a look out for their progress.
The W.O.W. Group - Planning for our Spiritual Garden
The W.O.W. Group have been working hard on planning for our new spiritual garden. We successfully secured some funding to be able to create a peaceful area with multi sensory features and an eco friendly environment in which children can spend time on calm activities. We hope to attract local birds and insects too. Look out for ways in which you can support us to create this new area over the coming weeks.