Being a Church School
Our aim is to bring the best out of every pupil that attends St Luke’s
Christian Ethos Statement
As a Church of England school, we have adopted the ethos statement as follows:
Recognising its historic foundation, the school will preserve and develop its religious character in accordance with the principles of the Church of England and in partnership with at parish and diocesan level.
The school aims to serve its community by providing an education of the highest quality for all faiths and none.
In order to support this statement, we build our work around our six core values which apply equally to children and adults:
- INTEGRITY
- PERSEVERANCE
- CONFIDENCE
- EMPATHY
- HONESTY
- KINDNESS
All Faiths and None
At St Luke’s we are proud of our Christian ethos and like to think of it as an open fire. We celebrate the education of all children from all faiths and none and invite children to sit as close to our ‘fire’ as they feel comfortable, whilst respecting the beliefs and wishes of those who wish to sit a little further away.
Collective Worship occurs daily, and we invite children to respect the Christian basis of the worship. Children are invited to participate, but there is no expectation for them to do so. We do however have the expectation that all children will sit and listen respectfully.
Parents reserve the right to remove their children from Collective Worship for religious reasons.
The Holy Trinity
Within St Luke’s we use the sunflower as a symbol of the Holy Trinity. Each class has their own sunflower that they bring to each Collective Worship as part of coming together as a community
Each part of the sunflower represents part of the Holy Trinity as follows:
God the Father – the roots. Unseen, but crucial in the process of creation in the darkness, moving from darkness to light and feeding future growth.
God the Son – stem and flower. Sunflowers grow tall and conspicuous – they are visible amongst all flowers. Jesus made himself visible as He told stories on hills and mountains and in public places such as synagogues, so that people could see him. He did not wish to hide away to do God’s work, but to make sure that he was seen and known.
God the Holy Spirit – sunflower seeds – seeds give us both energy and hope for the future, knowing that the seeds, once planted, will create new life and more sunflowers. The Holy Spirit is the presence of God in the world, sent to the disciples by Jesus (and subsequently to their disciples) when he went back to heaven to encourage them and give them strength to follow his example. Through the seeds, new life and new hope can be created.
The roots, stem and flower and seeds work together to complete the circle of creation. The same can be said for the Holy Trinity.
Collective Worship
“Jesus the Light of the World is Here – we welcome him today”
This is our regular Worship Greeting. As a Church of England school, our strong Christian ethos is evident in the loving, encouraging behaviour, shown by all towards all. Our greeting allows all particpants to invite Jesus into their lives through the act of worship and gathering together. Children are invited to join in with the audience participatory response.
Prayers in School
Children are invited to say prayers at several times during the day namely during Collective Worship, Grace before we eat and our school prayer at the end of the day.
School Prayer
Dear Father,
We give you our school,
We give you our children,
We give you our staff,
Let our school be a place where we love to learn and where we learn to love.
We pray our school would be place of great discovery, adventure and creativity
We ask all of this through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen
Class Prayer
Dear God,
Please help us together,
To learn for life, achieve our best and grow in faith.
In Jesus' name,
Amen