Collective Worship, Church and Community

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. We are a school for all faiths and none, and 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, Easter and Y6 Leavers’ Service. 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. We also visit Portsmouth Cathedral each year for the Diocesan Y6 Leavers’ Service. 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

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

Y6 Leavers’ Service and workshops in Portsmouth Cathedral

Each year, our Y6 children take part in workshops and the Leaver’s Service at Portsmouth Cathedral. The workshops this year included a Game Changers activity, making wire angels, a singing workshop and a self-guided tour around the cathedral. Following lunch on the cathedral lawns, we then took part in the service led by Bishop Ian, Reverend Harriet, and the Diocesan Education Team. Brighstone was chosen to lead the congregation in prayer, which was a great honour; Toby, Arya and Max C did us all proud, and Bishop Ian congratulated them on their excellent clear reading. Nico carried his statue, representing the Game Changer statues that all the children made, using Anthony Gormley as inspiration. Charlie and Lucy proudly carried our fabulous new banner (a huge thank you to Liz, Rufus’ gran, who made it!), and Leigh received the candle. We all had a fabulous day.

Bell ringers

Collective Worship structure

Pupils are able to take an active part in the execution of collective worship; e.g. helping with the music and visuals, as well as being a part of the drama or poetry elements. There are also opportunities for children to reflect and provide feedback on the weekly theme, how they have used it or seen it, and offer suggestions for improvement.

Throughout the year, the whole school takes part in special church services, including Harvest, Christingle and Easter, as well as the Y6 Leavers’ Service. During these church services, Y5 and Y6 pupils lead the congregation in prayer, and there are opportunities for each class performs a poetry reading, dance or song.

There is a special reflection table in the main corridor, which shows our half-termly theme and weekly focus, as well as opportunities for children to interact with the weekly focus through specific activities. There are also children’s prayer books on this table, to which children across the years have contributed.

Each class has a special reflection table which includes a Bible, a prayer book, the RE Golden Threads, a candle representing Jesus as the Light of the World, and their year group’s special CW object. A member of each class is responsible for carrying these special objects into CW and then back to their special reflection table.

Our School Prayer

Our school prayer incorporates our school values.

For further information about Collective Worship in our school, please see our Collective Worship policy that is available on our Policies page of this website.

Collective Worship Guidance 2021

The right of withdrawal
Parents have a legal right to withdraw their child from acts of worship. We ask for this to be discussed with the headteacher, Mrs Lennon, so the exact nature of worship is understood by the parents before this becomes a permanent arrangement. If parents nevertheless require their child to be withdrawn from collective worship, they will be required to advise the school on what alternative spiritual activity they wish their child to engage in during this time. Please be aware that this does not mean that the children will be exempt from the Christian ethos of the setting which underpins our teaching, learning and relationships.

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, The Isle of Wight Zoo (now renamed The Wildheart Trust), Red Nose Day, World Book Day, Ukraine appeal, Sight for Wight, Show Racism the Red Card and many more!

Here are some more examples from the last few years:

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!”