Clergy Experience
A key aspect of our project is encouraging clergy to get involved in their local school. This is done through a combination of mentoring and modelling from Tony, provision of lesson ideas and resources, and encouraging clergy to take a lead.
Engaging the local community
Throughout the project we have seen the positive impact of displaying children’s work in the local church. This has engaged the community, where children can bring their family into church to see their work, and encouraged elderly congregations, as they could see the children’s spirituality through their work.
Children’s engagement
Clergy shared their encouragement from how the children engaged in the workshops and activities. They saw the Holy Spirit at work in classrooms and through the work produced by children.
Growing Faith resources & experience
Tony has been involved in schools work for many years and clergy have appreciated learning from his modelling and mentoring approach. They also reflected on the simplicity of this approach to schools work and easy application of workshop structures and techniques to other topics.
Mystery Plays
Mystery plays have their origin in York and Tony has written scenes based on different themes (e.g. light in the darkness). Tony has been working on different scenes with the children, then giving them the scripts to work on with teachers and at home. These have often been performed at the local church, with family and friends invited to come and watch. As Mike says, this gave them the opportunity to “enter into those stories”.