Our Church School

 

Our partner church is St. Johns the Evangelist, Lostock Gralam, Church of England.

You can access the church's website here.

 

Our Church School

 

Our vision statement is at the forefront of every decision that we make:

Children are at the heart of everything that we do and Christ is the light that guides us (John 8:12).

 

"In worship we explore how Christs' example can be the guiding light in our lives." - Y6 Quote

 

     

 

At Lostock Gralam, we place high importance on our Christian Values. They help us to live good lives and give us strength to be the kind, loving and respectful wider family that makes our school such a special place to be part of. The sunflower is an important analogy of her Vision Statement. Sunflowers turn to the light in order to thrive, just as we turn to Christ's example to guide us. 

 

Our core Christian Values are:Hope, Respect, Friendship, Love, Courage, Forgiveness. 

These are displayed proudly in our hall, celebrating our fantastic art skills as well as giving us visual reminders of how we treat each other. 

 

         

 

Our Christian Values are also displayed in the children's outdoor reflection area, where they can visit for quiet moments of reflection or simply sit alone or with friends to enjoy God's beautiful world. Our Ethos Team collected ideas from their classes to design our new, beautiful area. 

 

 

 

Our School Prayer

                     

 

                     Dear God

                     This is our school

                     May our school be full of joy

                     May love be here among us every day

                     Let us remember

                    That many hands build a house

                    So every child can make this school a lovely place to be

                     Amen

           

 

 

Reflection Areas

Each class has a Reflection area where the children can have a moment of calm relfection, write prayers, read the Bible or simply sit. 

 

                                                     

 

                                                                     

       

Our Ethos Group met with Vicar Andrew to discuss how we can improve our reflection areas and then went about setting up new and exciting items for each classroom. The children came up with the idea of using mirrors and crystals to symbolise the importance of 'light' in our vision statement and letting our light shine like Christ did. 

 

           

 

Chester Cathedral Canon Chancellor Award

We are very proud to have been awarded a Chester Cathedral Canon Chancellor Award in July 2021 for the work our school has done to protect God's beautiful world. Our Ethos group, School Council and Head Students produced a video to explain and promote how our faith has inspired our conservation work. We are looking forward to working closely with Chester Cathedral on their "Amazing Light" Science and Faith workshop. Please follow this link to see our work in action:

https://youtu.be/lOvs1eVVgQM

 

                                                   

  

Worship

 

Worship is the heart beat of our school and is an incredibly important part of our school day. During worship we learn more about our faith and those of others, join together in group and personal prayer as well as providing us with time and space for reflection.

Worships may be delievered by children, staff and visitors using Bible stories, drama, role play, using art as a stimulus and music. Our weekly worships are structured as follows:

• Monday: Picture News - Here we explore the impact of topical issues on God's world and the people in it.
• Tuesday: Christian Values/Agents of Hope/World Faiths - Here we explore the focus Christian value of the half term, learn about real life agents of hope and celebrate other religions. 
• Wednesday: Open the Book - Our friends from Church take us on journey through the Bible using role play and drama. 
• Thursday: Praise Singing 
• Friday: Sunflower Awards - Here we recognise how children have used Christ's light and Christian values throughout the week. 

 

                     

 

"We all come together and praise God as a whole school."

"Lighting the 3 wick candle before worship helps me to feel close to Jesus."

"We learn something new every day and have fun singing and listening to bible stories in an exciting way."

 

We love singing and dancing in worship and often bring these songs back to our classrooms as a means of continuing our spirituality throughout the day.

                                                                                         

 

Open the Book Worship

Each week during worship, our friends from Open the Book share the exciting parts of the big Bible story with us. Children are encouraged to take part in the drama to share the important message of the story. 

"I love helping Open the Book sing songs and act out different bible stories to help me understand." - Y1 Quote

"It is nice that we can invite friends and visitors in to share worship with us." - Y4 Quote

 

 

For the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, our friends from Open the Book visited school to help us plant a reflection garden in our School grounds. They helped us to install our wonderful three tier water feature which is a visual reminder of how we love God in three different ways. 

 

                               

 

Church Worships 

Throughout the year, Vicar Andrew visits us at school to introduce each new Christian value. He then invites all classes individually over to Church to have a personal class worship with him to explore the Christian value further. We also attend worships in Church as a whole school to celebrate Christian festivals such as Harvest, Christingle, Christmas and Easter. 

 

"I love when Vicar Andrew teaches us new songs with actions in Church." - Y2 Quote

 

                           

              

Children leading Worship

Because children are at the heart of everything we do, we like to involve them in the planning and delivering of worships. Throughout the year, classes plan and deliver a worship based on their Phase 2 curriculum learning which focuses on social and environmental impact on God's world. Our active Ethos Group open and close worship each day, collect and share prayers from class reflection areas and act out scenarios to emphasise the message of the worship.  

Year 6 Ethos Group gather pupil voice reflections on worship weekly and each class also takes responsibility for our school reflection book where we gather our thoughts about the impact of our worships. The children also keep our friends in Church updated with weekly school news via an email to Vicar Andrew who reads this out in Church each Sunday. 

"It's nice to hear what the children next door are getting up to, especially as I used to attend Lostock myself many years ago." - Quote from Church member

 

Our Year 4 children planned and led a worship based on their science learning and the negative impact humans can have on God's planet. The children from Goldfinches' Class challenged the rest of the school to make one change to positively protect God's world and the creatures within it, as well as being courageous advocates themselves by organising a litter pick on the school grounds.

 

                  

 

As a result of the Year 4 worship, children from other classes demonstrated their courageous advocacy by litter picking in the local area during their own time.

 

     

 

We warmly welcomed one of our families to lead worship based on Chinese New Year. They kindly brought their magnificent lion, showed us Chinese writing explained why the colour red is so important to Chinese people.  As a result of this worship, children made lanterns reflecting on what they had learnt from their friends. 

                                  

                                                                                               

 

 

   

 

 

Agents of Hope

Hope is one of our core Christian values which has inspired us to learn about real life examples of people who have shown resilience in the face of adversity. These agents of hope help us to celebrate God's diverse world, reinforcing the message that there are 'No Outsiders' in our school.

An example of a real ‘Agent of Hope’ who visited our school recently is Manchester United and Ireland football player Aoife Mannion. She talked to us about how she had to have perseverance and hope to get to where she is today and inspired us to each for our dreams.

 

“'If you can'?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”

Mark 9:23. 23

 

               

 

Building on our Worships about 'Agents of Hope' our Y5 and Y6 Ethos team independently planned and delivered a worship based around different 'Agents of Hope’ in the real world. The children shared inspirational stories and gave us hope that if things are tricky we can always achieve our dreams. 

 

Faith in Action

As part of our faith in action, choir visited our local care home to spread joy through singing. The children shared our Christian values of Love, Kindness and Respect with our new friends who loved joining in with our songs.

 

                                 

 

 

 

            

 Our gardening club have also worked closely with the members of our local community. The children showed respect when they met the members of our local Church to discuss a joint project of creating a community garden in the church grounds. They met with the Church members over a drink and biscuit to discuss the vision for the garden, before getting hard at work to bring the vision to life. 

 

                         

 

• "How is your job different to Vicar Andrew's job?" Year Three quote.
• "What do you enjoy about your job?" Year Four quote.
• "Have you ever had an event in your life that has tested your faith?" Year Five quote.
• "Do you prefer Messi or Ronaldo?" Year Three quote. 
• "As a child, how can I take my faith further?" Year Five quote. 

Coronation of King Charles III

To celebrate the Coronation of King Charles III, we held a special worship in church where we asked God to guide our new king in his role to serve our country. We discussed the Christian Value of ‘Service’ as the new King promises to continue the never-ending service that his late mother, Queen Elizabeth, showed our country. We ended our service with the national anthem and planted new red and white flowers in our remembrance planter in our school grounds.

 

                   

A prayer for our King from Hope Together:

Our Father in heaven,
We pray today for our new King Charles III. Grant him your peace as he commits himself again to your
service. Give him strength and perseverance as he promises to serve us all as King. May he know you
are walking with him day by day. Help him to fulfil his vows and promises. May he follow the example
of Jesus – the ultimate King of Kings. God bless the King.
Amen 

 

        

 

Our Tribute to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Messages of condolences for the Queen in the Parish Book of Condolences:

 

 

 

Our Head Students and members of Ethos group shared our whole school reflections of Queen Elizabeth. Each child made a leaf with their own thoughts and prayers on for the Queen and her family. We thanked God for her life and service to others.

 

   

 

We explored the Christian Value of Service in worship as we reflected on the exceptional service of Queen Elizabeth. We discussed how we can follow her example with the support of a quote from the book of Acts 20:35:

'Remembering the words Jesus himself said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

 

 

 

 

Inter-Faith Week

During Inter-Faith Week, we welcomed a variety of different visitors into school to share their religions and faiths with us. The children showed respect and enthusiasm during their learning from our Quaker, Christian, Muslim, Unitarianism and Baha’i visitors.

This week helped the children understand what a diverse country we live in, as well as the similarities and differences between our Christian faith and those of our visitors. Inter-Faith week ended with a sharing assembly where the children showed wonderful courage in presenting what they had learned about the different faiths and how we can live well together in front of the rest of the school. 

 

“Every religion seems to have kindness in it and how to look after each other so even though we belong to different religions, we have lots of the same values.” - Quote from Y6 pupil.

 

 

 

Harvest Festival

We enjoyed a beautiful Harvest Festival in Church with our friends and families celebrating all the good things that God has given us. Every child took part in a class song or poem to thank God for his wonderful world and produce.

Our favourite lines from ‘Beautiful World’ that reflect our thoughts this week are:

“Thank you for the morning light Thank you for the moonlight night. Thank you for the sunshine and the rain. Thank you for the hope you bring. Thank you, God, for everything. It’s a beautiful world, you made.”

 

                  

Thank you to our children and families for their generous donations which will be greatfully received by The Cheshire Food Hub in our village. 

 

 

Remembrance Day

To mark Remembrance Day, the whole school visited the war memorial at church on Friday 11th November to show our respect for everyone involved in previous and current conflicts. We held a special worship with our friends from Church and observed a minutes silence to The Last Post and Reveille music. Our Year 6 children also wrote and delivered parts of our special worship at the War Memorial. 

Back at school during reflecion time, each child planted a poppy seed into recycled tyres, formed in the shape of a poppy, as a sign of respect. We have enjoyed watching the poppies grow and they have helped us remember the sacrifies the soldiers made. 

 

      

 

Nature Club designed and decorated the beautiful planters that are proudly displayed at the front of school to show our respect to all service people past and present. 

 

 

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

 

"We have collected recycled milk lids to create a popopy to help us to remember the sacrifices the soldiers made and make for us." Quote from Y5 child.            

 

Christingle

We enjoyed a special worship led by Vicar Andrew who explained the significance of the Christingle for Christians. Every child made their own Christingle in school and together, using glow sticks, we "lit" our Christingles to feel a sense of community and belonging as well as awe and wonder. We thought about our vision statement "Christ is the light that guides us" as our Christingles lit up the darkness, as Jesus lights the way for each and every one of us.

 

"The sweeties are a reminder of the good things that God has given to us." - Y2 Child

"The red ribbon could be a symbol of Jesus' love, it goes on and on and on." - Y3 Child

"The light is to remind us that Christ's love is ever lasting and there to show us the way." - Y6 Child

 

             

We were thrilled to welcome one of our families into school to teach us all about Chinese New Year. We were delighted to meet their dragon and to have the experience of being inside it. We learnt lots about their culture and had a great time. 

                          

"I loved being inside the dragon and learning about how important the colour red is to Chinese people. It was so exciting." Y1 child.

Easter

During the Easter period, we visited our beautiful Church a number of times where Vicar Andrew helped us to understand the Easter story, the reasons why Lent is such a valuable time for Christians and why forgiveness is at the heart of this Christian celebration.

 

“Jesus forgave the people who hurt him which must have been tricky for him to do. Sometimes it isn’t easy to forgive my friends if they upset me but we can try and do what Jesus did.” - Y2 child.

 

Luke 24:6-7: "He is not here; he has risen!"

 

                                

 

Exploring the Easter story in Owls' Class:

 

                                                     

 

 

Science and Faith Workshop

Robins had a wonderful Science and Faith Workshop where we explored "Amazing Light" led by Chester Cathedral.

"God is like a mirror."

"God is transparent, he is always there."

"God and Jesus are beautiful like rainbows."

          

 

 

Worship during the Coronavirus Pandemic

During the pandemic, we found new ways to worship within our bubbles.  We felt that it was important to collate our reflections on worship and displayed these in the hall so that we could continue to "come together" as a school. Here are a few examples of our worship reflections from this year:

 

       

 

Even though we were not able to hold our normal special services in church, such as Christingle and Easter, we still enjoyed beautiful worships in our class bubbles.

         

World Book Day 

To celebrate World Book Day and our No Outsiders work, each class made a biography book based upon an individual or set of individuals that they have been learning about. Each book features the life story/stories of famous individuals who were courageous advocates and fought for what they believed in under difficult circumstances. These individuals achieved huge successes in their lives and positively impacted the lives of others. We admired their courage, perseverance and faith in their quest for justice. We really enjoyed designing our books in the style of the “Little People, Big Dreams” series. 

 

 

 

 

         

 

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