Worship Round Up
Friday 9th February 2024
Our weekly round-up aims to support our parents in the conversations that they are having at home with their children. Each week, we will share the themes of each of our worships and any resources that we have been using, such as: videos, books and music, to allow our parents to access these if they wish to. Our weekly worship is structured in the following way:
- Monday Worship Focus: ‘The world Needs More Purple People’ led by class teachers or the senior leadership team who explore the theme of 'All Made in God's Image';
- Tuesday Worship Focus: ‘What’s happening in the world this week?’ led by Mrs Griffin and focusing on key events that are taking place in the world currently;
- Wednesday Worship Focus: ‘Bible Stories’ led by Luke Wickings (the vicar from St Paul’s) who is working through the stories of the Bible and exploring the lessons that can be learnt from these;
- Thursday Worship Focus: Singing led by Mrs Griffin and Mrs Walker;
- Friday Worship Focus: Values and Celebration led by Mrs Evans who revisits one of our core values — Commitment, Courage and Love, along with celebrating the team points winners for the week and achievements from outside school with the pupils.
Monday's Worship
Just Be You!
On Monday in worship we focused on the importance of being 'yourself'. We reflected on how differences make our community stronger, that each one of us is unique and that each and every one of us should be valued equally. We thought about whether it is always easy to 'be yourself'? We then looked back at the message in 1 Samuel 16:7 which encourages you to look beyond differences in appearance and to look carefully at the actions of others to get to know them better.
Tuesday's Worship
Promoting Positive Mental Health
On Tuesday, our Year 6 Positive Relationship Mentors did a fantastic job of leading us in celebrating Children's Mental Health week and Safer Internet day. They shared with us the themes this year of 'My Voice Matters' and ‘Inspiring change? Making a difference, managing influence and navigating change online’. We considered how we manage ourselves in conversations with others when sharing our opinions and how we ensure we do this with kindness and respect for others and their opinions and voice.
We looked at the UN Article 12 which protects the voice of young people around the world. We talked about the role that adults play in helping children share to their voice by giving them positive opportunities to do so. We finished by sharing responsibilities that we have for our own internet safety.
We considered the emotions involved in using the internet and our healthy responses to changes that we may face online. We considered who helps us to make sensible decisions when being online and the trusted adults we have to support us in this. We asked God to be with us in the way we share our opinions and in our use of the internet and thanked him for the adults who help us.
Wednesday's Worshp
What is Lent?
On Wednesday we focused on Lent. We watched a video that told the story of Jesus in the Wilderness. We identified the 3 temptations that Jesus faced: resisting what he needed; testing his trust in God; testing his resolve to follow the right path. We talked about Lent being a time of spiritual preparation and reflection when we remember the time leading up to Jesus's death and ressurection. We then talked about Shrove Tuesday and the origin of this - people using up the 'rich' foods that they would give up during Lent - and reflected on why Christians make a sacrifice of something that they love during this time. We ended worship by singing 'Our God is a Great Big God' and with prayers led by some of the children.
Thursday's Worship
Singing
Today we sang 'My Lighthouse'. We discussed how God is like a lighthouse. The children said that God is the light of the world and that he shows us the way. He guides us through hard times and when we feel lost. We also sang 'Today'.
Friday's Worship
How does Collective Worship Support our Spiritual Development?
Today in worship we continued our series of worships focusing on developing our 'Spirituality'. We reminded ourselves of the video that we watched a few weeks ago week which can be watched again here:
//www.youtube.com/embed/z4vXynkkhDU#t=0.5
We looked again at 6 things that can support our spiritual development:
1. Taking time to reflect.
2. Taking part in creative activities (such as music, dance and art) that help us to feel centred and peaceful.
3. Connecting with the natural world around us.
4. Prayer.
5. Helping others.
6. Practising gratitude - being grateful for what we have and showing gratitude towards those around us.
We added in one additional one....'Collective Worship'. We then reflected on the following questions: "If we took away Collective Worship, what would that mean for you? What would you miss? What does Collective Worship give you each day?"
Some the things that children and adults highlighted were:
- Learning about and understanding the Bible
- Singing
- Joining together as a community everyday
- Celebrating: hot chocolate and team points
- Feeling closer to God
- Chances to pray together
We sang 'Every Blade of Grass' and ended in prayer led by 3 of the children: Olson in Year 5, Sam in Year 2 and Ariyan in Reception.
