Spirituality & Christian Values
Rooted in love, our inclusive school community is safe, warm and welcoming, with wellbeing at the heart of all we do. Everyone is enabled to be curious, love learning and grow together with respect at our two unique sites.
Spiritual Reflection
At St. James’ and Ebrington CofE Primary School and Ebrington’s Little Pickles, we give the children many opportunities to grow spiritually. We use the Gloucester Diocese Education Department Language of Spirituality. The ‘Language of Spirituality’ is used throughout everyday school life and links to our curriculum and the Zones of Regulation we use to check in with the children and adults as part of our relational approach to wellbeing.
As stated in our vision and lived out within our school, wellbeing and good mental health are at the core of our offer to our children, families, staff, and community. One of our key messages is that love is not just a feeling; it is a way of relating to everyone, and the world, around us. Therefore, relationships are the central priority within our school and the NCSF Trust.
All staff invest time in building relationships with the children, their families, each other, and the community. We believe that supporting children to understand their emotions and connect with their spirituality is essential so children can be in the right place to learn and flourish. We invest in this philosophy by providing a varied offer for all of our school family, this includes employing key people to work with our children and families.
Visit our Pastoral Support page here, for further information:
We use the concepts of ows, wows and nows during worship, reflection time, through links with curriculum topics to explore the world around us and relationships between ourselves and others. The inclusive nature of the ‘language of spirituality’ offers the invitation to relate to God but is open to all faiths so our school family can all access spiritual reflection.
Our Spiritual Journey
Throughout our school each class has a Spiritual Journey book which is used to document the ‘ows, wows and nows’ of school life, local and world news, festivals and celebrations, and reflections on class worship. The children add pictures, comments, and momentos to reflect on during the year. There is also a Staff Spiritual Journey book which is used by the school staff team, we feel passionately about adults as well as children having the same opportunities to reflect spiritually and model the use of wellbeing resources within our school.
When reflecting upon Worship or making a reflection that links to our values the children will use a fish symbol to write on and stick into the book. Children are free to choose whether they wish their reflections to be anonymous or named within the books.
In each class and the staff room, ‘Our Spiritual Journey’ books are proudly displayed so they can be shared with parents/carers on Welcome Wednesday mornings, shared with visitors, and reflected upon by the children and staff.
Take a look below at some photographs of the pages within some of ‘Our Spiritual Journey’ books.
Christian Values
We believe that our ethos of relational practice requires love, compassion, and respect - all of which takes courage and honesty. Therefore learning about these four core Christian values: courage, honesty, compassion, and respect, enables us to live out our vision. Our Christian values are known by the children and are the basis of our Worship each term. The children are encouraged to recognise peers demonstrating these values in school and these are rewarded with value cards. Each value card is exchanged for a ‘value pom pom’ for their class. When a class fills their value pom pom jar they get a reward to celebrate their collective success of demonstrating our values.
Value postcards are sent home each term so that parents/carers are able to return the postcards when their child has demonstrated one of our values outside of school. In our Gold Book Worship each Friday we share and celebrate the values postcards returned to school.
Courageous Advocacy
‘You must be the change you want to see in the world’ - Ghandi
As a Church of England Primary School we believe part of our mission is to be agents of change and encourage our school community to make ethical choices. Linking with our vision and values; inclusivity and community are key drivers within our school and we aim to empower the children to understand their responsibility towards others in local, national, and global communities. Our Worship and Eco committees and School Council choose specific causes each academic year to fundraise for but also to be actively spreading key messages. In addition to this, through our curriculum and focus on respect for all and the value of equity to enable all to flourish, the children are strongly motivated to enact change themselves which we support and facilitate.
Last year, many projects to enact change were driven by the children for causes they were passionate about, had researched, or had been directly affected by. Varying fundraising events and Worships to raise awareness were planned and delivered by the children for Cancer Research UK, Dementia UK, Shelter, Ukrainian Refugee donations, and our local Food Bank.
Our curriculum includes opportunities to reflect on the ‘ows, wows and nows’ of events, cultures, and people in the world around us. In addition to this, in Year 2 and Year 5 we take part in the Archbishop of York’s Young Leaders Award which is designed to empower Young Leaders to transform
society and to inspire others to do the same.
British Values
At St. James’ and Ebrington, we recognise the importance of allowing pupils to develop a love of learning so they can flourish academically but also focus on their wellbeing and developing children's curiosity and respect for the world around them preparing them for their adult life beyond our school and nurturing family of schools. Part of our role in that preparation is ensuring that we promote and reinforce British values across our school and throughout our curriculum so that British values shine throughout all that we do.
The government set out its definition of British values in the 2015 Prevent Strategy and considered them to be:
democracy
rule of law
individual liberty
mutual respect and
tolerance of those of different faiths and beliefs
Pupils are encouraged to regard people of all faiths, races, and cultures with respect and tolerance, and understand that while different people may hold different views about what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, all people living in England are subject to its law. Our children are confident in discussing their place in the world and how they can positively contribute to modern British society now and in the future.
