Spirituality in our School

What is spirituality?

Spirituality is a difficult thing to define! At St Nicholas and St Laurence we believe it is fundamental to our mental and physical well-being (for children and adults too), but is not exactly the same as those things. It is not necessarily tied to a religious belief. People of faith and people of no faith can be deeply spiritual. We have defined spirituality as this:

Spirituality is not something we can see or touch - we feel it inside all of us. It might be a sense of awe and wonder. It might be a sense of empathy and compassion. It might be a sense there are important questions to be asked which might not have obvious answers. It might want us to laugh, cry, sing, be creative or be still. We might have spiritual experiences with others or we might have them on our own. Spirituality is a sense of something bigger than ourselves.

How do we nurture spirituality at St Nicholas and St Laurence Primary?

• Our school Christian values are taught, lived out and celebrated.
• We make sure there are times of peace and for reflection in the school day.
• We spend time in special places such as St. Nicholas Church and other places of worship.
• We share art, music, stories and poems together.
• We share moments of awe and wonder
• We encourage respectful debate and questioning and make sure children feel secure enough to ask those 'big' questions.
• We foster a love of creation through our school grounds including our Forest School Area and through school visits.
• We encourage the spirit of 'courageous advocacy' and standing up for what we believe in, such as our school 'Eco Warriors' making small changes on our school site to help protect our precious planet
• We share different ways of exploring spirituality in worship e.g. looking at different religious art and icons, using candles, holding worship outside.
• We learn about our feelings, how to recognise them and live with them.

This February we have had our first prayer spaces day. We had a number or different creative, fun and thought provoking stations where we thought about God's love, his forgiveness, things we are thankful for in our life and others in the world who are not as fortunate as ourselves. Children from every year group really enjoyed the time of reflection.