Our Faith Community

 

We enjoy close links with our church, St Mary's and the wider faith community. We are blessed to have clergy-led worship every Tuesday morning, welcoming Rev Susan McKendrey and Archdeacon Richard Pratt on alternating weeks. We also enjoy members of the church community and Yvette Ladds and Lynn Graham (Solway Network Youth Church) joining us for prayer space reflections and collective worship. Throughout the year, we visit St Mary's Church to hold services where we welcome family members and encourage the wider community to join us in our worship. 

Please visit our Vision, Aims and Values in the About Us section of our website for further information. 

Meet our Worship Leaders

Our Worship Leaders plan and deliver collective worship based on the current Christian Value for the half term. We value children having a voice so acts of worship are nurtured and encouraged. Within the worship planning, the group consider something to read, something to listen to, something to see and a prayer.

 

REMEMBRANCE 2021

We joined other schools in our local area at St Mary's Church for a Remembrance Service. Some of our Year 6 pupils did a reading and Y6 Beech class created a wonderful display.

 

 

Bishop James' Visit

On Thursday 14th October, we welcomed Bishop James into school to officially open our outdoor prayer space. Our Worship Leaders also gave a tour of the school and Y6 got to do a Q&A session. Please watch the video linked below to see more -

 

Weekly Bible Story sessions with Key stage one children

Each Friday afternoon, we welcome members of our church community to deliver Bible stories to our Key Stage One children This term they have been centred around our current values of Hope and Responsibility. Opportunities for reflection are built in which encourage the children to wonder and explore their own thoughts, feelings and ideas.

Harvest Appeal 2021

Our school harvest appeal this year is for the North Lakes Foodbank. To launch this appeal, Stuart Christian led a collective worship for each key stage. Following on from this the children have donated a range of items to help the local community. 

Collective Worship led by our Worship Warriors

This term our Worship Warrior group have planned and led Collective Worship based on the value of Hope.

Outdoor Prayer Spaces

In September, we were blessed by two days of glorious sunshine- this enabled us to offer the whole school outdoor prayer space sessions led by Yvette Ladds accompanied by many church volunteers. The clergy modelled prayer, the children embraced the opportunities and this forged a partnership in prayer between the school and the church which was highly valuable.

Reverend Susan Thanksgiving service

Reverend Susan has contributed widely to our school over the past 10 years. In recognition of this excellent service, some of our children attended and did some readings in her service of thanksgiving.

Christian after school club

We offer an after school club run by the Solway Network Youth Church each Thursday.

Collective worship delivered by members of the church community

Each Thursday morning Yvette Ladds delivers Collective Worship across the school. At times, we have visitors as part of this rolling programme such as Helen Faulds from Poverty Swap who is helping to raise children’s awareness of Christianity on a global scale and help them to understand how they can think local and act global to make a difference to the lives of others.

Maranatha Yoga Well being

This term we are running Maranatha Yoga sessions to our well-being group in Year 5 and 6. The sessions are provided by a Church of Scotland Minister. Each week the children have the opportunity to join up their thinking mind, their bodies and their breathing.

 

 Examples of work linked to the Christian value of Compassion across the school- Summer term 2021

Summer term well-being group 2021

This term we have a groups of children working weekly with Yvette Ladds, Paul Rose and Stephen Williams developing their well being through spirituality and nature.

https://www.facebook.com/SolwayNYC/posts/995147147684595

 

EASTER

Unfortunately we were still unable to visit church for our annual Easter service. Each class did however make a video to share with the community.

 

EYFS https://www.facebook.com/333028734300032/videos/446209233314073

YEAR 1  https://www.facebook.com/333028734300032/videos/173085344543295

YEAR 2  https://www.facebook.com/333028734300032/videos/719976395335562

YEAR 3  https://www.facebook.com/333028734300032/videos/435442197718540

YEAR 4  https://www.facebook.com/333028734300032/videos/1374030609641597

YEAR 5  https://www.facebook.com/333028734300032/videos/2677740305834414

YEAR 6  https://www.facebook.com/333028734300032/videos/760246717941342

 

 

Our focus Christian value theme for this half term has been Perseverance. During the period of national lockdown, Mrs Ormond has continued to deliver Collective Worship for the children in the bubbles in school and also broadcasting these live on Facebook for the children and families at home. The hub children were given the opportunity to participate and lead aspects of the worship. The children had an important role to play, just as Jesus welcomed children and used them as models of faith for his followers.

 

Twas the week before the Christmas break.......

In the last week before we broke up for Christmas, the whole school focused on the Nativity and reflected on how and why it is important to Christians. Each class made a video to share with our community.

 

EYFS  https://www.facebook.com/333028734300032/videos/840286846773080

YEAR 1  https://www.facebook.com/333028734300032/videos/224965242484755

YEAR 2    https://www.facebook.com/333028734300032/videos/716217392589487

YEAR 3   https://www.facebook.com/333028734300032/videos/751511572125000

YEAR 4   https://www.facebook.com/333028734300032/videos/1327057914313580

YEAR 5  https://www.facebook.com/333028734300032/videos/699240154317659

YEAR 6  https://www.facebook.com/333028734300032/videos/421863202528064

 

 

 

CHRISTINGLE 2020

Even though we could not go to St Mary's for our Christingle service this year, we still continued the tradition in school. All of the children made their Christingle and then watched a pre-recorded video from Rev Susan.

 

PRAYER BAGS

We were delighted that Yvette Ladds, from the Solway Network Youth Church delivered individual prayer bags for all of our KS2 children. The contents of the bags provided lots of opportunities for thought and reflection.

 

DECEMBER 2020

 

As we are unable to attend church this year, each class has created a scene on a window retelling part of the story of Jesus' birth. This has formed a Nativity Trail that each class will follow and explore.

 

 

HARVEST 2020

Every year we are always humbled by how generous our school community is in supporting the foodbank based in St Mary's as part of our Harvest Appeal. Unfortunately, we are unable to accept food donations for the North Lakes Foodbank appeal this year but monetary donations of whatever you can afford are most welcome. Please visit https://www.thefoodbank.org.uk/  

 

As we are still unable to attend church, each class has presented a Harvest collective worship to share with the rest of the school and our community.  

 

NISCU Lockdown reflections

Our friends at NISCU are helping us through lockdown by posting a series of videos on YouTube each week which reflect our Christian Values to share with our families. We hope you find them useful in these difficult times.

FRIENDSHIP

 

 

Experience Easter March 2nd -4th 2020

Over the course of 3 days, all of our classes from Reception through to Year 6 visited St Mary's to visit the Experience Easter stations set up there. The children found out, in age appropriate ways, all about the Easter story and were able to reflect on the feelings of those involved as well as what Easter means for us today as Christians. A big thank you to RevSusan, the Solway Youth Network volunteers and all the helpers at St Mary's for leading this wonderful opportunity.

 

 

 

Crosses From Around The World

Children from each class worked with Miss Lockwood on a very special art project to find out about and then make the many different crosses from around the world. The crosses are now up on display for all to see in school.

 

Forgiveness Reflection Area

On 27/2/20, Lynn Graham from NISCU worked alongside our worship leaders to create a new reflection area on forgiveness.

 

Year 4 Swallows Christianity Around the World Project

Our Christianity around the world project is based on the book “Where in the world?”by Martyn Payne. 

Year 4 followed Sparkle’s story of migration, we learned that the safest place for a Swallow to perch during migration is the roof of a church. This led us to investigate different Christian churches and traditions around the world. We also looked at prayers from these places. 

We found out how Christianity originated in some countries - did you know that it is thanks to the apostle Andrew that Christianity is in Romania, he shared the story of Jesus. 

We learned that 77.4% of the population in Argentina is Christian. 

We all really enjoyed the investigation and with good team work, we were able to produce these wonderful Pic Collages. 

 

Thankfulness reflection areas

 

On 16/1/2020, Lynn Graham from NISCU joined our worship leaders to create two new reflection areas on the theme of 'thankfulness'. Lynne and the children created spaces where the pupils can reflect on what they are thankful for and can record their thoughts on the branches of the tree.

 

Carol Service 2019

On Monday 16^th December our children were joined by family members at our annual carol service in St Mary’s Church. The service was led by our Year 3 children who retold the story of the Nativity. Towards the end of the service Rev. Susan talked about the significance of the Christingle before we lit our candles and dimmed the lights in church.

 

The children in KS2 enjoyed making over 250 Christingle oranges for the carol service to be held on Monday 16th December in St Mary's. Each orange has a red ribbon and sweets/dried fruit on cocktail sticks along with a candle to represent Jesus as the 'light of the world'.

 

On Wednesday 2nd December, some of our children visited church to decorate a tree as part of the annual Christmas tree festival. Our tree was decorated with stars which each had on them our Christian values.

 

On Tuesday 3rd December, Rev. Susan and our friends from NISCU came along to deliver a special collective worship. They told the story of the Wise Men in the nativity and how the most special gift we can bring to God is ourselves. We enjoyed hearing the story and reflecting on the message. We also really enjoyed singing 'Little Drummer Boy'.

During 13^th and 14^th November, we were joined by representatives from St Mary's Church, Solway Network Youth Church and NISCU who worked with the children to access prayer spaces on the value of RESPONSIBILITY. The children visited each station and reflected on their responsibilities to themselves, their friends and family, the community and the world as a whole.

 

Maryport Schools Remembrance Service

Representatives from our school council joined those from other schools in the town at the annual Remembrance Service. Everyone in school had written a promise to God on a poppy and these were displayed in church. We also laid a wreath in remembrance of those who have sacrificed so much.