Collective Worship and RE

Collective Worship

At Dr Radcliffe's there is a daily act of collective worship. This can be whole school but is also key stage based and class based. Each term we have a collective worship theme based around our Christian values. Class 5 open and close our whole school collective worship. During collective worship the children have the opportunity to sing, pray and have moments of reflection. There is always a key theme for the week which provides the opportunity for children, think, share, respond and reflect. The themes are presented to the children through Bible stories, stories from other religions, plays, puppets, art and music. The children are encouraged to play an active part in their collective worship. 

We have strong links with our local church, SS Peter and Paul in Steeple Aston. Reverend Marcus is a regular visitor to school and regularly leads our collective worship, which the children thoroughly enjoy. Below is a link for the Church

https://www.sntchurch.com/

Our Collective Worship theme for this term is the value of Compassion. Our Bible quote for the term is:

‘Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.’ Colossians 3.12

Throughout this term we will be thinking about how compassion is about ‘standing in someone else’s shoes’ when they are having a hard time. In other words, trying to understand how they might be feeling and doing our best to try and help.

You could talk together about:

• how we can show compassion and kindness to one another at home;
• recognising when friends at school need us to listen and act with compassion;
• stories in the news demonstrating how strangers show compassion in times of natural disasters;
• How nations show compassion to other nations at times of disaster or need by sending money or volunteers to help.

On the website is a Home School Value sheet based around compassion. If you would like to access this please click on the link below.

Religious Education

Religious Education at Dr Radcliffe's offers children the opportunity to learn about and learn from religions and make connections with beliefs and practices. Christianity is studied in each class as well as another religion (Judaism in KS1 and Judaism, Hinduism and Islam in KS2 -other religions are also incorporated following children's own beliefs or interests.) In a recent survey, the children themselves explained why they thought it was important: "it helps to understand people from other religions”, “it helps you to choose a religion when you are older”, “when you grow up, you will understand and know why people have different practices and beliefs”.

We follow the Oxford Diocesan scheme of work, which starts with a big question and are supplementing this with the new Understanding Christianity resource. Click on the document below to see the progression of what is taught through the school.

Year 2's Visit to Be Space Prayer

Find out what Class 2 got up to when we were visited by Be Space Prayer 

https://www.dr-radcliffes.org.uk/be-space-prayer/

Year 4's visit to BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, London

As part of our learning about other faiths and religions, we visited BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir (commonly known as Neasden temple) to support our class learning about Hinduism.

The day began with a video presentation on Hinduism and the History of the Mandir. It took 3 years to build and is made out of 26,000 blocks of marble. These  were hand-carved in India and shipped to London to be assembled together. 'I liked how the building was beautifully crafted by hand.' (Chloe C).

We then observed 'Arti', a ceremony which takes place when lighted lamps are waved before the sacred images by Hindu monks. Following on, we then performed 'Darshan' which was where we spent time viewing the scared images of the shrines.

'I loved the worship room and seeing the murtis. They were decorated so well.' (Adam)

'We had to look at the qualities of the murtis before we could pray to them.' (Chloe M)

The day finished with a question and answer session. 'I loved being able to ask questions to a Hindu. it helped me to understand how they worship better.' (James)

Year 4 Messages of Peace

Harvest Celebrations 2017

​Remembrance Day - November 2016

Harvest Festival 2016

We had a lovely afternoon in the Church, on Tuesday thinking about Pentecost and what it means to Christians. We explored scripture from the Bible and artistic impressions and had the chance to reflect through art and words ourselves.

A big thank you to Mrs Smit for arranging the afternoon and to Mrs Woodhouse and Mrs Good for helping us.

Collective Worship in KS1

Open the Book 

This week we have been learning about the festival of Diwali. We made Indian sweets  and also Diva lamps out of clay. Having listened to the story of Rama and Sita, some of us made masks and retold the story.