15 December 2022
William Ford C of E Junior School in Dagenham works hard to ensure all its pupils learn about the gospel and encounter God not only through times of collective worship, but through its curriculum and special themed days.
One such day is their annual ‘Spirituality Day’ when the school dedicates time to focus on some of the bigger, more challenging questions.
During this year’s ‘Spirituality Day’ pupils thought about how to communicate with God and explored a variety of ways they could put this into practice by visiting different prayer stations. Each prayer station included a fun activity to help the children engage in prayer and reflection.
David Huntingford, Headteacher at William Ford School explained:
Our ‘Spirituality Day’ is not about teachers providing the answers but encouraging our children to think deeply and critically whilst considering the biblical perspective on issues. We began with a time of collective worship: considering what prayer is and why we should pray. Throughout the day, our children considered questions like ‘if I could have a conversation with God, what would I say?’ and ’if you could be God for the day, what would you do?’”
Talking about the prayer stations that each class visited, Richard Wakeford, Creative and Wellbeing curriculum leader at William Ford School said:
Whether it was writing prayers for other countries and placing them on a world map or writing prayers on a paper aeroplane and throwing them towards God; or even writing prayers for our government and posting them into our ‘diplomatic’ post box, our children were full of excitement and enthusiasm to connect spiritually with others, through prayer and reflection.”
Reggy Hart, a year four pupil, added:
I really liked visiting the different prayer stations. We got to write our prayers in different ways, have a discussion and then we could read them out if we wanted.”
The school now has plans to partner with their local church to open prayer spaces during break and lunch times for pupils. The prayer spaces will be led and supported by members of Dagenham Parish Church.
