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Diocesan Education Newsletter

March 2020

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Dear colleagues As I write this, the sun is shining and I can hear birds in the garden. I read this morning that fish have returned to now clear waters in Venice. Moments when everything seems ‘normal’ are heartening. Stories of hope, community and service continue to balance the daily reports of the seriousness and sadness of what is happening around us. But we remain conscious of the reality and changing situation. Schools are central to the huge effort that is being made to contain this deadly virus, and we are so grateful to you for all you are doing to encourage your communities and particularly in serving others as you offer safe havens for the children of key workers. I was reminded earlier of the meaning of Encouragement : This requires immense and sustained courage. We understand ‘en-couragement’ to mean the act of putting heart into another person or group – giving them the ability to take the next step together, even when that next step if far from clear in the dark. As Martin Luther King put it so eloquently – ‘you don’t need to see the whole staircase to take the first step’. The Education Team continues to be available to support in whatever ways we can, as we work along with Local Authority colleagues to assist in however best we can without overloading you at such a challenging time. We are working remotely and will respond to emails and phonecalls and avoid initiating correspondence where we can – without wanting to appear detached. It’s our intention to send a weekly email on Wednesdays – which will include resources that may be appropriate to forward to children / parents and carers, to complement your own endeavours. We hope that this Newsletter highlights and celebrates the great things you routinely do, and offers a moment to look backwards but also offers a sign of what we can do when we reach the new normal. Thank you sincerely for not just ‘doing’, but importantly, ‘being’ – and demonstrating so tangibly the values that underpin our schools. Best wishes

Jeff

Jeff Williams Director of Education

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Joint Diocesan Conference in Africa

At the specific invitation of the Bishop, the first Companion

Link education conference has taken place in Rwanda, led by

members of the Diocesan Education team and two Winchester

Diocesan headteachers.

Headteachers, chaplains and school pastors attended the day-long conference, held in the Shyogwe Diocese in Central Rwanda. The country is the key Companion Link for Winchester schools. Diocesan Director of Education Jeff Williams and Schools Advisor Sue Bowen continue to build links between schools and parishes in both countries. This time they were accompanied by Michelle Marsh, headteacher of St James Church of England Primary School, West End and Sarah Duck, headteacher of St Bede Church of England Primary School, Winchester.

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Rwanda is moving to a competency-based curriculum and during a previous visit, school

leaders requested support with pedagogy. Conference workshops included:

Interactive teaching methods for

English language acquisition and

practical Maths

How to create teaching resources

using local natural materials

Interactive prayer

How to create prayer spaces and labyrinths

Good practice in interactive

church school worship

The education team’s link with Rwanda is

mutually-beneficial and a means of deepening

links and learning for schools and parishes in

both countries. Following previous visits, a

growing online learning community has been

established between headteachers and lead

teachers in both countries. Shared learning is

taking place, including the exchanging of

research findings and developments in

assessments and improving teachers’

questioning skills.

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Schools are sharing good practice in pedagogy and some aspects of serving The Common Good in Rwandan communities have been adopted by Winchester diocesan schools. One of the intended outcomes of the project is to produce a

targeted and sustainable strategy to ensure longevity and

productive links. Schools are being approached on an

individual basis in

order to ensure

appropriate level

of

communication

before a link is agreed.

Pupils in Winchester schools invented games, created books and wrote prayers for their counterparts in Rwanda in preparation for the visit. They also sent some incomplete weaving art work to be finished by pupils in Rwanda. These woven strands will form a helix around a peace pole to be displayed in Winchester Cathedral at this year’s leavers services.

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The Education Team invested in new technology to

enhance the learning experiences of children in both

countries. Virtual reality headsets allowed children in

Rwanda’s remotest schools to ‘visit’ under the sea and

be linked live to the International Space Station. The

use of a 360 degree camera will mean that children in

Winchester schools will be able to experience sitting

in a Rwandan school lesson and a church worship as if

they were there. Finally, a microscope attachment for

a camera has allowed the team to capture enlarged,

detailed photographs of Rwandan plants and animals

that can be used for Science and Art lessons.

St James’ wins silver award!

St James’ Church of England Primary Academy in Bournemouth has become the first school

in Winchester and Portsmouth dioceses to gain the RE Quality Mark. The school was

awarded the silver quality mark in acknowledgement of the work it has done to develop

children’s enjoyment of the subject. This ranges from organising staff training on creative

ways to teach RE, to developing their RE work in practical ways to support their local community.

As part of their RE unit on the Kingdom of God, Year 6 visited the local ‘Sleepsafe’ project

and Foodbank in a local church and set up a project to reach out to some of the rough

sleepers in the local area and provide them with

hot drinks.

After studying the Understanding Christianity unit

‘Creation’ , children considered how devastating

the recent fires in Australia were for God’s

creation and what action they could take as young

children living on the other side of the world. They raised money for victims through a cake sale.

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The school has been keen to bring RE to life for their pupils. Children in Year 4 visited

Bournemouth Reform Synagogue as part of a “Discovering the Old Testament” project, where they learned about the festival of Hanukkah.

The assessor was impressed with the children’s enthusiasm for RE and their thoughtful

comments. RE Subject leader Nikki Bowen was delighted with the result and is now keen to explore ways of sharing their good practice with other schools.

For more information about the REQM, visit the REQM website, or contact Jane Kelly jane.kelly@portsmouth.anglican.org

Youngest children learn Christian Values

Leaders at Winchester diocese’s new pre-schools are being trained to provide education

with a Christian ethos.

The Launchpads pre-schools at Barton Stacey, Boldre and Appleshaw are supported by Winchester Social Enterprise and form a network of settings that promote Christian values and strong links with their local parish church. Staff have received training from the Diocesan Education Team on creative ways of teaching very young children about the Christian values of joy, compassion and friendship through Bible stories, toys and puppets. Staff are to receive further training on how to develop basic worship with young children.

MP praises school

Pupils at a West Meon school have received a visit from an MP and a personal invitation to

the Houses of Parliament to congratulate them on their results.

Meon Valley MP Flick Drummond visited West Meon Church of England Primary School and

invited pupils to London after 100 percent of children achieved at least the expected

national standard in reading, writing and maths.

Headteacher Julie Kelly said that she hoped to take Year Six pupils and the school council

representatives to London in the summer.

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‘Best Day Ever’ at St Martin’s A day exploring Spirituality has been described by a Year One child as the best day every at school. St Martin’s Church of England Primary School in East Woodhay decided to hold the day In order to develop childrens’ understanding of different elements of spirituality and how it linked to the existing school ethos, as well as the school’s focus on staff and children’s wellbeing.

The day started with a whole school worship, where children were reminded of moments where they could learn more about themselves (mirror moments), others (door moments), the world (window moments) and ‘beyond’ (candle moments). The children then spent the day working in their house groups to develop their understanding of the different spiritual moments.

Throughout the day, children completed a session on each type of spiritual moment. These started with a range of inspirations including art, drama, photos and Bible stories and then involved children completing an activity to develop their understanding. After each activity, the children collected a small object to represent the moment they had just learned about and by the end of the day every child had their own special ‘spirituality kit.’ Parents and carers enjoyed regular updates on the school website and Facebook throughout the day. They were invited into school to hear the school house captains give a presentation, sharing what they had learned before a tour of the classrooms.

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Headteacher Katy Bartlett said: ‘The staff, children and parents all thoroughly enjoyed our Spirituality Day and we are all looking forward to seeing how our school approach to spirituality develops over the forthcoming, weeks, months and years. Year R teachers are looking forward to introducing this to our youngest children next term, in an age-appropriate way, to ensure their understanding of such an important concept. The day is best summed up by one of our Year 1 children who told their parent ‘It was the best day ever – I had lots of fun and it really made me think about who I am!’

Winchester Synod Conference

An exciting programme around the theme of Prophetic Global Citizenship was enjoyed by Winchester Synod members at the third annual conference. The Diocesan Education team supported members with activities demonstrating how children in diocesan schools are learning to be good global citizens. Each activity, which included the creation of table top peace poles, silent debates and modelling Christian concepts in clay, followed explorations of John’s Gospel by Professor David Ford.

Professor Ford’s daily studies drew on John’s Gospel to respond to the key themes from the Understanding Christianity resource. Understanding Christianity was commended by Bishop Tim, the Bishop of Winchester, as an introduction to the Christian faith that can inspire the mission of the whole people of God, envisioning everyone to live as prophetic citizens of the Kingdom of God in today’s global context.

Professor Ford praised the work of the education team and schools in teaching children global citizenship in a plethora of creative ways.

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School Visions In Art A new training session to support schools with their vision statements is proving popular with schools. Many schools have been reviewing their visions in order to fulfil the requirements of the new Siams inspection framework. The framework requires church schools to have visions that are ‘distinctively Christian’ and still able to be articulated by the whole school community. New training, offered by the Diocesan Education Team, supports schools to created their vision pictorially. Creating a piece of artwork that demonstrates the school’s aims and ultimate goals can help young children understand the vision of their school. In the training session staff and/or governors explore the Christian values of their school, the local community, any changes in the cohorts of children coming through the school, the requirements for inspection and the national Church of England Vision for Education. From this, working in groups, staff create pictures or 3D models that depict what they see as the vision for the school. This training is then used to inspire pupils to create their own pictures, from which one image of the school’s vision is selected for the school. Using the selected artwork, even very young children are able to articulate the school vision. The training has been delivered at several schools as part of an INSET day. Schools wanting to discuss the training, which is free of charge, should contact sue.bowen@portsmouth.anglican.org

From My Perspective

A look at church schools through the eyes of people working in the school community. Headteacher reflections on working in Rwanda

Paul Brown, headteacher, Bransgore C of E Primary

School.

The visit was life changing and completely altered my

view of humanity and how we, as humankind, are

able to recover, rebuild and thrive from the depths of

despair, destruction and hatred.

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Our intention was to support the schools to begin to think about more engaging and

collaborative approaches to learning and teaching and to try to help move forward the shift from knowledge based to competency-based curriculum. It was challenging and tiring work.

I admire the diocesan philosophy of not going to the country as “benevolent Westerners”

and I think we did convinced some rather sceptical Rwandan teachers that we could learn

much from them, not least, the fact that true resilience has almost been lost in the West.

Strive and struggle have become an anathema, something one should not be exposed to.

The value of education, the raising of children to contribute to society and the common

good feels like it has been misplaced in the UK when you compare us to Rwanda. There, the

philosophy beats strongly in the heart of every teacher and children value education

because they still see the need to learn their way out of poverty and hardship. In some

ways it is nice that our children in the West have been spared these hard lessons and stark

choices, but it has, somehow, diminished our character, our sense of community and

shared purpose. The resilience I witnessed in the children of Rwanda, the dedication of

teachers teaching in the most challenging of circumstances and the communities that are

so close knit is a lesson we must absorb and reflect upon.

There is no escaping the fact that until the schools receive better resources they will

struggle to implement the curriculum that they aspire to deliver. Perhaps we, as a diocese,

may need to re-examine our view of resourcing to support development? This will take

discussion, reflection, prayer and caution if it is to strike the right balance between sharing a spiritual and educational fellowship whilst helping with resources or finances.

Real cause for celebration is that we have established Wattsapp groups with teachers so

that learning and teaching can be discussed and trialled, coaching can take place and

resources shared. This is an excellent project and something I feel humbled to have been a

part of. It has changed me for the better.

Mark Saxby , former headteacher, St Luke’s Church of

England Primary School, Bournemouth.

A visit to Rwanda leaves you a changed person. It has

provided me with a new understanding and

perspective of our society and education system,

whilst I still feel I only scratched the surface of

Rwanda.

Arriving at the schools we could be greeted by

enthusiastic teachers with well regimented, yet

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excited children, ready to sing, dance and show off their talents. Some schools were very

low on resources and facilities, with teachers leading classes of 60 plus in the morning and

then a different 60 children in the afternoon. In others with we saw class sizes of 30, smart

buildings and adequate resources. In all cases the enthusiasm of the majority of children to

learn was phenomenal.

As a visitor I felt we contributed most effectively when we were able to work with the

student teachers at the Teacher Training college. The class of 40 Trainee primary teachers

aged 16 years old were able to explore ‘typical’ whole class, group work and games we

might use in our lessons and identify how they could make this related to their practice.

There is a danger of unintended consequences when collaborating with Rwandan schools.

Singing is their real strength, yet we visited one school who sang a bland version of ‘Lord I

lift your name on high!’ - a song I feel they must have learnt from well-intentioned visitors.

The very best songs, either sung in Kinyarwanda or English, were based on their local style

of music- full of energy and movement. This example could easily be a metaphor for how an

education link develops. The leadership of Jeff Williams and Sue Bowen is key in developing

the links with the Shyogwe district’s schools and I am confident that they can enable and

coach the Rwandan school leaders to achieve the vision and goals they have for their

schools in a Rwandan way.

Sarah Duck, Head teacher, St Bede Church of England Primary

School, Winchester

Despite a number of initial reservations when I was first

offered the opportunity to visit Rwanda, my main concern was

what I could offer when working with teachers in a country and

education system where I knew so little. I was relieved

therefore, that we were able to observe teaching in a number

of schools, before discussing our ideas for future development

with teachers and school leaders.

I quickly realised that the challenges we face as educators are different; I have no

experience of teaching classes of over 80 children without resources or additional teaching

support, nor have I needed to teach those children from 7.30 a.m. until 5 p.m. with

whatever additional preparation time that is required. I also realised however, that we have

many things in common; a love of children, an understanding of the power education has to transform lives and a commitment to help others and serve the common good.

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During my time in Rwanda I learned so much; about myself and what I value, about the

education system I work in and about another country. We discussed opportunities to

promote collaborative learning experiences and to move beyond checking recall of facts to

checking understanding of language and ideas. We also considered the challenges of

needing to teach lessons in a language you have received little or no formal teaching in. I

hope these ideas will be further explored and developed through lasting links we made with

a number of schools and teachers; I also hope these links will help me to keep growing,

reflecting and learning.

Rwanda is an incredible country, its people are hopeful, welcoming and open to help and

friendship. Archbishop Desmond Tutu is cited as having said ‘Hope is being able to see that

there is light despite all the darkness.’ Rwanda has experienced more than its share of

darkness, what it may not yet known is the light it is bringing to others through the sharing

of ideas and experiences and the development of opportunities to work and grow together.

Michelle Marsh, headteacher, Saint James Church of England Primary School

Going to Rwanda felt like a giant leap of faith. It

is one of the decisions I’ve made which I will

never regret as this experience has truly

transformed my outlook on life.

Before this trip, all I knew about Rwanda was

that it was a country which had experienced a

brutal genocide. I very quickly learnt how

ignorant I had been. It is a magnificent country

with some of the most kind, loving and generous

people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Bishop Jered told us that people never visit

Rwanda once. He is so right because I hadn’t even left the country before I started planning

how I could return. Visiting schools was an eye opening experience. Imagine asking our

children to walk for an hour to get to and from school and having a school day which starts

at 7:20 and ends at 17:00! Classes have 80 to 100 children in a room and teachers have

nothing other than a chalk board and piece of chalk. The learning is very different to the

collaborative style we have but the children make progress. It was inspirational to see how beautifully the children behave as they value the opportunity to learn

These people, who have experienced horrors which most of us can’t even comprehend,

have moved forward in a life which is full of hope for the future. As the past lies behind

them they stand united as Rwandans focused on serving the common good. It was one of

the most humbling experiences of my life.

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