Spirituality Day – Wednesday 10th January 2024 

At Freeman’s Endowed and St Barnabas Church of England Primary Schools we have recognised the importance of supporting our children to grow and flourish spiritually. We have looked at specific ways that we can support the spiritual growth of our children and we began by considering what spirituality means to each of us. 

Defining spirituality proved challenging for all of us! However, we all agreed that spirituality involved an awareness of something greater than ourselves. We also recognised that it involved moments and experiences of awe and wonder in our own lives and in the wider world, and involved connection and reflection. We shared some definitions of spirituality, as well as attempting our own: We finally agreed on the following definition: 

On Wednesday 10th January, both St Barnabas and Freeman’s schools held a Spirituality Day.  The day was introduced in Collective Worship and together we discussed what spirituality meant to us.  We talked about ‘Wow, Ow and Now’ moments and how we respond to those different moments in our lives. 

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During the day the children spent time in the hall where there were different spiritulaity activities set up.  These included activities where children could think about different Ow, Wow and Now moments in their own lives and the lives of others. 

 The children found the activities thought-provoking and really valued the time they had to reflect and think. Below are some of the responses the children gave and photographs of them taking part in the activities... 

Below are some of the children’s responses to the different activities from throughout the day... 

Reception

The children in Owl and Hegdehog classes explored the big question, “What makes us say WOW?” The children went on a walk around the school grounds and took time to really ‘notice’ and pay close attention to wonders of nature such as birds flying, branches dancing in the wind and feathers falling. The children simply took time to enjoy outside, to admire and wonder at the natural environment. They then used watercolour paint to represent their findings and paint the things they observed that made them say ‘wow’! 

We also discussed what we were thankful for, the children discussed in groups things in their lives that they are thankful for. We then drew it onto leaves for our thankfulness tree. The children came up with various ideas such as: toys, teachers, parents, pets and school dinners!  

Year 1

In Squirrel class we looked at the amazing patterns we find in the nature around us and tried hard to replicate them.  The children enjoyed looking through magnifying glasses at leaves and plants.  We also looked at some pictures of animal patterns of animals that we wouldn’t find in our local environment.  The children loved seeing some of the more unusual animals. 

In Kingfisher Class we considered some of the big questions and thought about the answers, listening to and considering the ideas of others. We thought about what makes us say WOW and produced some lovely artwork.