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.

At the beginning of term nine of us had heard of the Central American tradition of Pasarda, a travelling crib scene visiting different houses.

The Explorers group created 7 sacks one for each year group at the start of December. Each night children have been taking the bag home to add their part to the Nativity scene. We think they all look fantastic. Children were also asked to share how their families celebrate Christmas and what special customs and traditions they have. It makes for interesting reading!

A big thank you to everyone who contributed to this original project and we hope it has given you something to reflect on this Christmas.

Travelling Crib

There are several Christmas services at St Marys over the festive period to which everyone is very warmly invited.

The Carol Service is at 3.30 pm on Sunday 21 st December and the Christingle workshop is at 3.30 pm on Christmas Eve.

We do wish you all a very happy and peaceful Christmas and look forward to welcoming the children back to Explorers next term

Yvonne, Rachel and Mrs Webb.

Who we are...

Sian Webb

Yvonne Cook

Rachel Belshaw

https://www.sunchurch.co.uk/