Church and Community Links

Church and Collective Worship

Our school has a warm, friendly family atmosphere where parents, the church and village community are encouraged to become fully involved in all events and activities. As a Voluntary Aided school, we are very proud of our strong links with St. Mary’s Church.

Throughout the year, we visit St. Mary’s Church for school events including Harvest, Christmas, Nativity, Christingle and Easter. Our children also participate in a number of church and village events, such as Messy Church, Open the Book, the Christmas Tree Festival, Remembrance Day and the Brighstone Horticultural Show. Classes use the church to support programmes of study for Religious Education and History. As well as holding special services in the church, we also like to worship and celebrate God’s wonderful world outside in our natural environment!

We also believe in the importance of learning about other religions and for communities to work together. As part of this, we take part in Inter Faith week each year, where we invite people in from different religions to talk about their faith.

Each week, a member of the church community leads a whole school Collective Worship in school. Currently, these are:

Rev Jackie Maw – Team Rector at St. Mary’s Church

Peter Johnson – reader at St. Mary’s Church

Andy Dorning – South Wight Area Youth (SWAY) leader

Marie Willis – South Wight Area Youth (SWAY) youth worker

Olivia Stemmet – South Wight Area Youth (SWAY) gap year student

Jacob Mills – South Wight Area Youth (SWAY) youth worker

The team rector at St Mary’s Church is Rev Jackie Maw.

Contact The Five Churches office:

e-mail: bbmskparishes@gmail.com or tel: 07474 987683

or contact www.portsmouthanglican.org

Our Bishop is the Right Rev Dr Jonathan Frost.

Some examples of our activities

Collective Worship Guidance 2021

We recognise that there may be those who are uncomfortable to enter through this open door of worship in our school and so the Church of England recognises the right of withdrawal from Collective Worship for those parents or pupils who wish to exercise this option. If you wish to withdraw your child from Collective Worship, please contact Mrs Lennon, headteacher.

Community and charity

Being a small village school, we develop strong links with the local village and surrounding areas. This enables children to see themselves as part of the local and wider community, and encourages them to reach out and support others. We also take part in charity events, raising awareness of and money for a range of different charities, including:

Mountbatten Hospice, Royal British Legion, Children in Need, IW Radio Toy Appeal, Place2Be, The Isle of Wight Zoo (now renamed The Wildheart Trust), Red Nose Day, World Book Day, Ukraine appeal, Sight for Wight and many more!

Here are some examples:

Cards for the community

During lockdown, we spread joy and happiness throughout the village when every child in the school made a card for members of the local community so they didn’t feel so lonely. We teamed up with Brighstone’s Community Hub Co-ordinator to identify people living alone in the village who would benefit from messages from the children. This gesture was very much appreciated and it was heart-warming to receive many cards and letters in return, explaining how we had touched and brightened many lives. This activity reflected our values of love and respect, as well as our Collective Worship values of generosity and compassion.

Reverse advent calendar

Children at Brighstone CE Aided Primary School donated hundreds of items of fruit and vegetables for the animals at the Isle of Wight Zoo as part of a reverse advent calendar initiative.

Following Reception’s and Key Stage One’s school trip to the zoo at the beginning of November, the whole school were inspired to get involved in the Isle of Wight Zoo’s ‘Veg Pledge’ scheme which helps the zoo to provide quality fresh food to their animals at minimal or no cost. In the three weeks leading up to Christmas the children donated hundreds of items of fruit and vegetables to provide meals for creatures including capuchin monkeys, meercats, porcupines, racoons, lemurs and the zoo’s farm animals. We know how difficult it has been for the zoo this year due to the impact of the pandemic so felt inspired to support their veg pledge, which reflects this term’s Collective Worship values of generosity and compassion.

Marc Fox, Animal Manager at the Isle of Wight Zoo said: “We are so grateful for the support of the local community which is helping us through these unusual times. The generous delivery of fresh fruit and vegetables from the children at Brighstone this December has helped us enormously, and the animals are very thankful for their tasty meals.”

Hearts for Homes

With usual carol singing and care home visits cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions, we aimed to bring some Christmas cheer to elderly residents in their local community by creating and delivering cards, pictures and letters to residents at Brighstone Grange care home. Pupils from the school would normally visit the home to sing carols each Christmas, but this year residents were able to watch our nativity performance online instead.
Linnet Hutchinson, Vital Coordinator at Brighstone Grange care home, said: “It was lovely to receive the drawings and messages from the children this Christmas; it has given our residents a real boost. They have also thoroughly enjoyed watching the school’s nativity online, with the added bonus that it can be watched again and again! Thank you Brighstone School!”

Red Nose Day 2021

The children are out to save the world! We had a fantastic day finding our inner superheroes as part of the Red Nose Day theme of ‘superpowers’. In return for a donation, children came to school dressed as a superhero, either a well-known character or a made up one.

Throughout the day, the children took part in a range of activities around superpowers, such as the values of collaboration, courage, resilience and kindness, or practical superpowers such as epic dance moves, hilarious hopping or brilliant balancing! We also took part in a whole school ‘Wake Up Shake Up’ dance-a-thon.

In Ainslie class, they held a ‘tell a joke’ challenge, listened to more superhero stories and pretended to be superheroes inside and outside. In Lambert class, they created superhero masks in Art, wrote character descriptions of their superheroes, carried out some superhero balancing challenges around an obstacle course, made some balloon flying superheroes in Science, and explored a range of super skills, including super stamina, super hearing, and super minds. In Robertson class, they held a talent show linked to Kassy’s speech in the book that they are currently reading, explored the reasons behind Red Nose Day and why we need it, took part in trust and team building exercises, and carried out a Comic Relief quiz testing their super minds! As part of their Romans topic, they also made shields and took part in a battle between the Romans and the Iceni tribe. In Macarthur class, they drew superheroes and took part in superhero Maths challenges. In Clover class, they created their own superheroes and their alter egos. They used their pop-art skills to represent them and when describing both characters’ qualities, showed how they can create contrasts within their writing.

We raised over £170!

Seahorse Around Britain – Susannah and Didi on an adventure

Didi (Mrs Nicholson) and her sister-in-law Susannah are sailing around Great Britain in their boat Seahorse. Didi used to be our Chair of Governors, and they are both raising money for South Wight Area Youth (SWAY). Billy Bear is also accompanying them, and we are very excited to be following their adventures! You can find out more information on their blog: https://www.seahorse184.com/