St Marys St Neots Challenge Updates

Week 6 - Gold

This term, the children in Oak class have been studying different types of prayer. After presenting the Easter story as a narrated mime at the beginning of the week, Oak class asked all the children at St Mary’s school to write a prayer either individually or collaboratively in their classes to be read at the Easter service in Church at the end of the week.

Ideas for inclusion in the prayers were suggested by the children in Oak class and were directed towards thanking God for the gift of Jesus which is the gift of life and asking God to help people in need, particularly the elderly, those seeking work, our School and Church communities and the sick and bereaved. Some of the prayers have been used to decorate our ‘Prayer Tree’ in the entrance hall in school.

In addition, all the children in school have been decorating wooden crosses to be shown to Fr Paul as they collect their Palm crosses during the Easter service in Church.

Week Five - Gold

This week we set the challenge for the children to think about our neighbours in the world. The school council have been planning activities for Sport Relief 2012 for the past month and they decided that the two would gel together really well. Along with Reverend Sarah from St Mary's Church in St Neots they have ordered and sold the wristbands from Sport relief this week. Tomorrow (Friday 23rd March), the children have arranged for staff and pupils to dress up as their favourite sports men and women  for a donation. They have also organised a cake sale and fun run. All donations will go to Sport Relief in the hope that the money raised will help build wells in countries across the world where water is a precious commodity. Thank you

Week 4 - Gold

Our Lent Challenge was to think about our Church ‘family’ and to thank our ‘Mother Church’, St Mary’s, for all the help and support the clergy and congregation give to our school.

The link with our Parish Church was developed as the Mother Church and classes were asked to prepare Thank you cards for the church representatives who work so closely with us (Clergy visitors, reading volunteers, governors, eucharist visitors etc) At the end of the week, we had a fantastic celebration of MOTHERS led by the youngest children in the school.  Lots of family members attended and enjoyed all the singing and displays of work. 

At the start of the week our Reception Class held an assembly;  children held up pictures of the Queen, Michelle Obama, Marge Simpson, Beyonce, Lady Diana, Queen Victoria and Victoria Beckham and invited the school to identify the link between them – all are mothers! Reception children then explained the origins of Mothering Sunday. In the middle of Lent, servant girls would return to visit their own mothers and attend their ‘mother church’. The girls would bring simple gifts of flowers, eggs or cakes. The children then showed a Simnel cake and invited the school to explain its origin.  At the end of the week, the Reception class held a second assembly, on the theme of love and kindness, to which their own mothers were invited.

The Challenge to the school was to make an individual or class card to be presented to our Parish Church of St Mary’s on Mothering Sunday, thanking them for all their help and support to the school.

The cards were taken to the Sunday Service by the Headteacher, who presented them to the congregation. The cards were well received, so much so that the congregation was late coming out! The congregation reciprocated by sending flowers to the school.

Week Three - Silver

For our Lent Challenge week 3 we have been looking at our natural environment. We kicked this off with our assembly and told the creation story through role play. We set the challenge of litter picking around the school grounds every lunch time. Teams of children from each group met up at lunch to litter pick. We also tried to make aware that we all have a responsibility to look after our natural environment.

Week Two - Gold

Ash Class (Yr2) led a collective worship on Monday 27th February to the whole school. They talked about neighbours and how we could look after each other in school. The children decided to set up 'Reading buddies'. The older children were invited to come into school early on the Wednesday and Friday and read/share a book with the younger children. Out of the 130 children in the school only 16 children chose not to come in! There was a real buzz round the school with children sharing and talking.   On the Friday Ash class went out to visit our church neighbours. They took part took in the Women's World Day of prayer at the United Reform Church. The children banged drums, sang and acted out a drama about 'How the cat became a judge!' They childeen and congregation had a lovely morning.   We have also been busy making welcome banners for our school.

Week One - Silver

Monday 20th February saw the launch of St Mary's Lent challenge with Year 5 leading an assembly. Our theme was "Calendars and countdowns" and we issued every child with a lent Calendar of 40 challenges to take home.These challenges are being hotly discussed each day in school!  The calendar is available on the stewardship website.