Distinctively Christian at Paulerspury Primary School

What is a Church of England School?

Before the government became involved with providing education for everyone in England- there were church schools and other charitable schools. The majority of church schools were built in the 1800’s.  These school’s were founded to provide education for the poorest  members of the parish community.  There were two requirements, the first to teach Christianity through “Religious Instruction” and the second to hold a regular act of worship.

When the state became involved with providing mass education, church schools became integrated into the education provided by the state. All these schools are known as maintained schools – they are funded by the state. All maintained schools including the Church school have to teach Religious Education and hold a daily act of worship. So church schools work on the same basis as community schools.

The purpose of a Church of England school is to offer a spiritual dimension to the lives of young people, within the traditions of the Church of England, in an increasingly secular world.

Christian Values

Our Christian Values underpin everything that we do.  They influence how we interact with each other and how we deal with events in the life of the school.  

Our values are:

We focus on one value each month and they provide the theme for our acts of collective worship.

At the end of each term one child from each class receives a Governors’ Award for best representing the school’s Christian values.

Prayer

We have a school prayer which was written by one of our Year 6 pupils in 2018.

We also use The Lord’s Prayer regularly in worship.

We also pray every lunchtime before we eat and at the end of the school day.

Collective Worship

Collective worship is the focus of our school day, where we come together as a school community to share good news and give thanks for our world.  We use a range of resources to support our worship including Out of the box , Roots and Fruits and Values for life.

Our normal weekly pattern of worship is:

• Monday — whole school worship, led by the Headteacher
• Tuesday — Singing worship — led by Mrs Newlyn-Jones
• Wednesday — Class worship — led by the class teacher or teaching assistant
• Thursday — Key stage worship — led by a teacher
• Friday — Celebration Worship — led by the Headteacher

Religious Education Statement of Entitlement

Religious Education in a Church school should enable every child to flourish and to live life in all its fullness. (John 10:10). It will help educate for dignity and respect encouraging all to live well together.  The full Church of England Statement of entitlement can be viewed here.

Religious Education (RE) is an integral part of our curriculum and all pupils are taught RE every week.  We follow the Northamptonshire Agreed Syllabus for RE and use a range of resources to support our teaching, including Understanding Christianity and the Peterborough Diocese Agreed Syllabus for RE.