RE and Collective worship
Welcome to St Stephen's R.E. and Collective Worship Page!
We are extremely proud to be a Church School of Excellence in this area. Our mission statement is firmly rooted in our school life. Here you will find information regarding what we teach and how we teach RE in our School.
Although RE is taught as a discrete subject, being a Church of England school, we embrace and celebrate God's word and values in everything we do. At St Stephen's, we wholeheartedly believe that our chosen values should be lived and breathed in order to become the caring citizens that God wants us to be.
Our children play a full role in ensuring that our aims and values are understood by all and are demonstrated in every aspect of their school lives. Worship Wardens help us to plan for our Collective Worship, and every class in KS2 is responsible for preparing and performing their own Class Worship each week. Children have the opportunity to share their prayers with the rest of the school during Collective Worship and these always demonstrate their understanding of, and sensitivity towards, current issues and themes.
All our year groups take responsibility for leading a special Worship time over the year; with our three very important Christian celebrations of Harvest, Christingle and Easter being held in St Stephen's church. The others: Mothers Day, Fathers Day, Eid and Remembrance Day are held in school. Parents are warmly invited to attend these special acts of Worship.
We are proud of the way in which the Christian teachings and Muslim faith can work in harmony, with everyone showing tolerance, acceptance and respect for our school family. Our pupils are proud to come to St. Stephens where they can learn about the Christian faith, nurture their own faith and develop their spirituality within a rich and caring community.
Our Worship Wardens play an important role in supporting the leaders of daily Worship. They apply for this position and are responsible for planning and evaluating the half termly Worship with the Headteacher throughout the year.
Their roles and responsibilities as well as the planning include:
Setting up the halls & tables for Worship, Celebration and Prizegiving
Setting up and managing the IT system during Worship
Participating in leading through drama, prayer, welcome/sending and readings
Leading their own Worship reflecting upon and evaluating the value of the term
Asking children and staff to evaluate our Worship
Monitoring the Reflection Areas in classrooms, giving staff feedback
Collating information for our Collective Worship floorbook
Asking the Big Questions and collating responses.
Being and leading upon our Courageous Advocacy project throughout school.
Supporting the headteacher with the Reflection table displays and Worship display board
Attending the Diocesan Conference for RE and/or Worship
We follow the Blackburn Diocese Board of Education RE syllabus for Church School. Here is the RE syllabus overview and the RE curriculum overview.
RE syllabus and RE curriculum overview
At St Stephen's we are proud to work in partnership with our local church, Diocese and local faith communities. During the period of Advent, we worked with the church to deliver food parcels to our families as well as the local parishioners. The children proudly made craft items to share with the local community. It is important for us to live out Jesus' message of treating other people how we would want to be treated ourselves.
Our children are surrounded by opportunities that encourage and develop prayer, contemplation and spiritual reflection. They are given experiences to live out the message of Jesus and are offered a curriculum that seeks to question, reflect, wonder and delve deeper- searching for answers to the meaning of life's experiences.
These photographs celebrate some of these 'awe and wonder' places in school.
