Being Church Schools
Respecting, Generous, Achieving-St Martin
Loving All Our Neighbours-All Saints
Religious Education
Religious Education is taught in accordance with the Cambridge Agreed Syllabus. As an Aided School with a Christian foundation, in each year there is a focus on Christianity plus the opportunity for pupils to learn and evaluate their own views on other world religions. RE enables pupils to appreciate their own and others' beliefs and cultures, helping them to develop a clear understanding of the significance of religion in their own area as well as in the world today.
RE intends to promote religious understanding and respect, and to challenge prejudice, discrimination and stereotyping.
It is concerned with the promotion of each pupil's-self-worth, enabling them to reflect on their uniqueness as human beings, to share their feelings and emotions with others and to appreciate the importance of forming and maintaining positive relationships.
We strongly believe that the purpose of RE is about religious literacy. This means we aim for children to be able to hold a balanced and well-informed conversation about religion and belief. In order to fulfil this purpose we provide a balance of theology, philosophy and human/social sciences within our RE lessons.
St Martin's School Prayer
This is our school.
Let peace live here.
Let the rooms be full of happiness.
Let love abide here.
Love of one another,
Love of all people,
Love of life itself,
and love of God.
Let us remember
That as many hands build a house,
Many hearts make a school.
Amen
All Saints Academy Prayer
Dear Lord
All Saints Academy would just like to say,
Please look after us as we go through the day.
Being honest, thoughtful, hardworking and kind,
We try our best and friendship we find.
So with your guidance we work and play,
Thank you Lord for hearing us pray.
Amen
Collective Worship
As a Church of England School, Collective Worship is carried out on a daily basis. It is Christian in content and encourages worship of God. Collective worship allows time for guidance, positive thought and development on spiritual, moral, social and emotional issues. Worship also allows an opportunity for quiet reflection and exploration of self.
Daily worship may be led by staff, children or visitors to the school. These worship times have a theme and may include stories, songs or hymns, prayers plus a time of reflection. The stained glass window in the school hall was created by pupils at the school and is a spectacular focal point for worship. We follow the Christian calendar and celebrate special days and festivals throughout the year. Parents and the community are warmly invited to share our daily worship and weekly celebrations as well as these special services.
Parents have the right to withdraw their child from Collective Worship if their own religious beliefs make this necessary. If you wish to withdraw your child please contact the Headteacher.
We actively encourage all children to take part in worship and our Worship Group are actively involved daily in the preparation and delivery of worship. All classes visit the local church at least once a term and we encourage visits at least once in a school year to places of worship in the wider community. Each class is responsible for leading a worship every half term and we welcome parents to share this with us.
In school, there is much to thank God for, much to praise, much to hope and aspire to. We celebrate wisdom, hope, community and dignity.
We are part of the Diocecse of Ely and you can link to the Diocese of Ely website by clicking here.
Worship Group
The Church school community gathers daily for an act of Christian Collective Worship.
Collective Worship is an extremely important part of the school day at The Village Saints Partnership as we use this time to reflect, be still and to worship God. The Worship Group is a group of pupils who take a leading role in Collective Worship.
We remember how Jesus welcomed children and used them as models of faith when speaking to his followers. (Luke chp 18 vss 15-17)
What does the Worship Group do?
The Worship Group have many roles each day to ensure the smooth running of Collective Worship:
- preparing the room for worship and clearing up afterwards
- operating the laptop, projector and the CD player
- holding open doors, lighting candles, setting up the worship table
- being called up by adults to take part in a drama, lead actions to songs etc
As well as this, the Worship Group also support in the planning, delivering and evaluating of Collective Worship. They write prayers linked to the current Christian value and use the resource 'Flippin Praise' to support with their planning.
Our Worship Group also support the monitoring of Reflection Areas in school and are brilliant role-models as they promote our school values.