It’s not often that an entire school gets to experience Messy Church.
But that’s what happened when the whole of Oxton St Saviour’s School set out to explore the story of the creation.
The event was organised by Tracey Williams, the Children’s and Families’ Worker at Oxton St Saviour’s Church, and Helen Jones, the Reception and Religious Education co-ordinator at the school.
In the morning, Reception and Key Stage One children learnt about the story of creation from the Bible.
They then had messy fun with crafts to explore this theme, including making mini creation gardens with natural materials they had collected the day before, making windchimes from fir cones and wellie planting, all of which are on display around the school grounds.
During the afternoon all of Key Stage 2 explored the theme in a different way, thinking about how everyone can all be a steward of God’s creation. Being blessed with beautiful weather helped, as children were able to use the school grounds to explore this theme. They sketched different things in detail using small frames, created 'good' and 'bad' creation gardens, decorated a large wooden cross with natural materials from the school grounds, painted beautiful watercolours showing their own interpretation of the theme and created outstanding cross keyrings. They also had a meditation room in which they could relax, listen to calm music and then create mind-maps of their thoughts.
Mrs Williams said: ''I feel very privileged to have been part of this wonderful day. It was a very rewarding event with an outstanding group of children. I was blown away by their interpretation of creation and stewardship and I would like to thank all who assisted to make the day so memorable.”
Some of the children's work has been on display at the church which has received some wonderful comments.
