We are closely involved with all the schools in oiur parish, offering weekly assemblies, help with the governance of the schools, end of term and end of year services,
To learn more about the schools:
Queen Elizabeth Grammar School
And a quick reminder of how things used to be: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8CsYqnLeL8
How we work with our schools
Ashbourne is a typical rural market town in the heart of Derbyshire, and is a wonderful place to live. The main town Church – St Oswald’s – has close links with all four primary and the secondary school, but inevitably we work most closely with St Oswald’s primary which is directly across the street!
Although the links have always been close, over the past three years we have deliberately fostered the sense of both school and church consciously working together – during this same period, both church and school have almost doubled in size.
Here are a few of the ways in which we work together:
Breakfast church (cup of coffee, a bacon Cob and a bit of God!) is a monthly informally service for people who don’t like church, run early on Sunday morning to allow children to go off to the sporting activities. For the first year this new service was supported by the school, but in the second and subsequent years the children decided to run their own version, every term, in school. They choose the topic, deliver the content and even help serve the breakfasts! The children are very proud of the Bishop’s award they received for their breakfast church.
Another example would be the way in which the school uses the church building for special events - sometimes as a teaching space, sometimes as a formal place for celebrations. The school holds a termly celebration service in St Oswald’s, again organised and delivered by the children (with a little help from the adults!) This means that the children feel they ‘own’ the church, and on their suggestion we now play quiet music throughout the day for visitors – and we often find children on their way home popping in to church for a few minutes peace.
A final example of school and church working together is the way in which we worked together on our vision and values, ensuring that the school’s ethos and character harmonises with the Church’s mission. By seeing this as a genuine joint exercise (not church telling school what to do, or the school leading the church) and involving children, staff, parents, PCC, governors and congregation, we achieved a real sense of common purpose.
Both school and church firmly believe that by working together we strengthen each other, and strengthen our community: a flourishing church, and a flourishing school adding up to a flourishing community!