 |
Send an email |
 |
020 7898 1518 |
All congregations will have contact with children and young people who are attending school and many members of the congregation will take a creative and positive interest in the work that children are doing, their progress through school and their achievements in the major public examinations.
It is common for children and young people to be prayed for at the beginning of each term, on Education Sunday and just before the major public examinations - these days including SATS as well as GCSEs and A levels. The pupils will also need the opportunity to talk about their experience in the school, perhaps including their own concerns about their progress, examination pressures, options and other choices, and moves from one phase of education to another. They may also have concerns about their relationships with their peers or possibly even with the staff of the school. Adults who work closely with children and young people in a church context can provide an important service by listening carefully and attentively to what they are saying and providing them with reassurance and encouragement.
Just occasionally more active roles may be needed where there are issues of great concern to an individual child or to a number of children, where it may be appropriate for somebody on behalf of the church to seek to make contact with the school, possibly through governors or a known teacher, in order to establish what is actually happening and why pupils are particularly concerned about it.
Where it seems as if such an approach is necessary this should always be done tactfully and with the assumption, at least in the first instance, that the problems are caused by misunderstandings and incomplete information and not by any malign intent.
© The National Society (Church of England) for Promoting Religious Education 2003-4 | National Society Sitemap |