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Calder Vale St John C of E Primary School
Grow, Achieve, Explore
Worship
The Blackburn Diocese Children's Collective Worship Conference 28th February 2024
Two of our Willow Class members joined two friends from Nicky Nook Class at our sister school Scorton CE Primary, to attend the Diocesan Children's Collective Worship Conference at Foxfields Country House Hotel in February. The theme was ‘Exploring Creative Ways of Marking the Events of Holy Week and Easter’. The activities were designed to equip and inspire our children to prepare and lead school worship during Holy Week. The day included planning prayer spaces and acts of worship which will helped our children to gaining a deeper understanding of the message and impact of the Easter Story. The children were the delegates and they came away with some fantastic resources and ideas. Both the boys were a credit to their families and our school with their fabulous manners and behaviour and the thoughtful and inventive ideas they shared with everyone. We will definitely be attending the conference next year.
Worship at Calder Vale St. John's
Why do we have Collective Worship in our school?
Following reports of a judicial review granted by the High Court, the Church of England's Chief Education Officer, Nigel Genders writes:
"We live at a time when children feel besieged by social media, weighed down by pressure and report poor mental health. Collective worship offers ten minutes in a day for children to pause and explore the big existential questions such as ‘Who am I?’ ‘Why am I here?’ and ‘How then should I live?"
Our school flourishes because of the strength and quality of the relationships within our school family. Collective worship brings our school family together and sustains and strengthens the bonds between us as we celebrate being part of God's family too.
Jesus’ teaching is at the centre of school life – we are servants to others; we practice honesty, we work and learn with integrity; we demonstrate respect and we are endlessly forgiving. At Calder Vale St. John's school, we constantly strive to know our children, their families and our community better so we can serve them more effectively. Following Jesus’ example, we encourage every member of our school family to build each other up. We know that community is God’s wish for us and we direct our lives towards everyone flourishing. Thriving relationships are not a means to an end in our school – they are an end in themselves – ‘we try as hard as we can to reach the goal that is before us’(Philippians 3:13) – our goal is to carry out God’s will in our school family and community.
Who leads Collective Worship?
Worship is led by a variety of people over the week:
- Rev. Michael Hutchinson (Vicar at Garstang St. Thomas's Church) starts the week for us
- Class teachers take turns to lead infant and junior worship at least once a week
- Mrs. Scholz, our Headteacher, leads whole school worship once a week
- The lovely Debbie Greenwood and her colleagues at NISCU (Northern Inter Schools Christian Union) lead a video worship for our infants and lower juniors once a week
- Our school Worship Team lead our Celebration Worship on a Friday
What are your worship themes?
Our new Mission Statement includes 'reaching out to others with the kindness and compassion of Jesus' and this year we will be thinking about how we 'live out' the Christian values he taught us.
These are the values we will be thinking about this year:
AUTUMN 1 - GENEROSITY
AUTUMN 2 - COMPASSION
SPRING 1 - COURAGE
SPRING 2 - FORGIVENESS
SUMMER 1 - FRIENDSHIP
SUMMER 2 - RESPECT