It’s great to hear what’s going on in Church of England schools across the Diocese of Norwich and to share this with others. At Ingoldisthorpe Primary School in West Norfolk, the children recently took part in a Spirituality day as part of their collective worship. Headteacher Mrs Norman has kindly shared their experience.
“We started the day with a collective worship exploring spirituality, where we explored how we go on a physical journey through life and a spiritual one. We talked about how in Christianity and other religions people go on a pilgrimage which is a physical and spiritual journey.
The children had a really good day learning how to connect spiritually and for Christians, our spiritual journey is with God. We split the children into their house teams, four vertical groups and they rotated throughout the day around 4 activities exploring spirituality.
Doors – Being tranquil and connecting with nature to explore spirituality, where do you get spirituality? The children did some forest bathing and tree hugging, They then made Gods’ eyes which we have hung in our sensory garden, where we can appreciate them during our quiet reflection time outside.
A spirited arts group – representing deep and thoughtful inspirational quotes through art. This session focused on taking quiet time to reflect and connect with ourselves using inspirational quotes as a focus point. These are now displayed in our entrance.
Windows to our world – where children are encouraged to think about and reflect on what they see in our world, linked to colour themes. The children explored what you can see through the window and we have made our own stained glass window in the hall.
A prayer time/ reflection group – where the children wrote their own prayers and read them in a quiet candle lit reflection time. They also made and decorated their own copy of the Lords prayer, which they took home. The prayers are going to be displayed in school on our prayer tree.
Our next special day will be exploring and finding out about Christianity as a world religion and what Christianity looks like in different parts of the world.
Further reading:
- Collective Worship in Church of England schools
- Why choose a Church of England school?
- Diocese of Norwich Education Team
