Explorers Club
Explorers is a jointly run afterschool club here at SUN school with friends from our Church, St Marys Sulhamstead and from school.
It was started about 25 years ago by a teacher at the school and a couple of parents from the church. The aim was to explore the Christian faith in a fun and exciting way and to foster links between the school and the church. And it is still running with those aims today. The club is open to all children from SUN school from Year 1 to Year 6. It has been encouraging to see many of our old pupils going along to the Christian Union at The Willink, our main feeder secondary school. Here the Christian faith is explored and discussed along side eating cake! All children from Explorers and the school along with their families are always very welcome at the services at St Marys. Explorers are invited to take part in special services from time to time at church.
A typical session starts with a drink and a snack and a chance to relax after a busy day at school. We then play some games outside with Hide and Seek being all the time favourite. We explore a story from the bible and there is usually a craft or activity linked to this. We end our time together with a short reflection that includes a song and a prayer.
In recent times we have made prayer boxes for each classes worship area. The boxes contain crosses, candles, and different coloured drapes to reflect the colours of the church year. As well we made scrap books of the bible stories that accompany the School Values. We appreciated the help with the coloured cloth from friends at the church.
We spent a year doing a Bible overview from cover to cover using The Block Buster Bible. This book takes a look behind the scenes of the bible and uses the theme of films. Each week the children acted out the story using the clapper board and shouting Lights, Camera Action! We were thrilled to have the author Andrew Pritchard come and talk to us!
This school year we are exploring the Christian values of the school. We have just finishing considering how to be thankful and have been out and about in the school grounds.
Fellowship and Community
We started this new term by listening again to the Parable of the Lost Sheep. This story links with the school value of Fellowship and Community and how we are each valuable and precious to God.
The children painted pebbles of sheep and links to the story. These will be hidden around the village so do keep your eyes peeled for them as you are out and about.
The children thought about how we live in fellowship and community with others who we don’t know. Remembrance Day gave us an opportunity to reflect on the sacrifice made by so many unknown to us but who gave their lives so that we could live in peace.
We crafted natural poppies out of dried leaves and spent sometime reflecting on the sacrifice made by others for us. This led into how and why Christians remember the sacrifice of Jesus by celebrating Holy Communion. We read the passage from the New testament where Jesus gives his followers the instructions on how to remember his death by eating bread and drinking wine.
In coming weeks we will have further opportunities to show Fellowship and Community to those known to us and those further afield whom we don’t know.
Don’t forget World Toilet Day on Wednesday when Explorers will be selling decorated toilet rolls for £1 each to raise money for toilet Twinning.
Who we are...
Sian Webb
Yvonne Cook
Rachel Belshaw
