Church School

'We are a Church School'

Services

On Tuesday 7th October, 2025, we held our annual Harvest service, where the children performed Harvest songs, read prayers and helped lead the service. The generous donations by our families went to Homestart, a local food bank, where we know they were gratefully received.

 On Monday 10th November, 2025, we held a Remembrance Service. As a village and school community, we planted poppies, read poems, and shared in prayer.  We will not forget. 

 On Wednesday 17th December 2025, we gathered as a community to celebrate our Christingle Service.  The children formed a circle with their homemade Christingle candles, to share the light of Jesus and spread the message of hope. 

 On Wednesday 25th  February 2026, we held an Ash Wednesday Communion service to mark the start of Lent.   Stories and bible readings were shared along with prayers from each class in school. Each child was offered an ash cross on their hand to mark the service.

 On Thursday 19th March 2026, we held an Easter service, with children retelling the events of Holy Week, sharing prayers and singing hymns that we had chosen specially to link to the Easter story. 

 

We are very lucky to have strong links with out local church, here in Loddington - St. Leonards.  Reverend Andy Giles and Reverend Andrew Murphy conduct regular services for the school community at St. Leonards.  They also visit our school every week to lead Collective Worship.

Service Feedback

 

Our Spring One focus Value for 2026 is Respect.

Feedback Gathered in Collective Worship

During each whole school worship, pupils are encouraged to reflect upon their participation and the key messages or thoughts for the day.

Collective Worship Observations

November 2024  Our Church School Forum Representative

An opening prayer was shared along with the lighting of candles.  Peace was them main value explored in relation to Remembrance Day.  Reverend Andy held a very interactive discussion with the children to recall the meaning of the poppy.  The resolution of having hate in your heart was explored through examples relevant to today and age appropriately.  The overriding message of the bible that you should treat people how you would like to be treated and to ultimately find peace.  A hymn related to the theme was sang by all. 

April 2025

Three candles were lit at the beginning of worship with children being reminded that they were being lit to represent God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. After the lighting of each candle the children were invited to respond ‘Jesus the light of the world is with us.’

The children spoke, when invited, with real confidence and knowledge, reviewing what the value of Trust meant to them.  Children from all year groups read paages related to The Easter Story.  Visual aids were used to encourage engagement with the bible story giving the children a wholly immersive experience.  All children were keen to take part.  Children were invited to read their prayers, showing they had taken time to consdier such a special time in the Christian calendar.  

Community Links

 

Our Community Links:

We really value strong community links.  Throughout the year we take part in community initiatives such as: planting bulbs and trees at the Loddington wetlands, displaying poppies around the village to mark Remembrance, picking litter and taking part in a litter awareness campaign. Termly, we host ' An Afternoon of Friendship'  in the village hall, where elderly residents are invited to join us for food and refreshements. The children have learned so much from our neighbours - many of whom went to Loddington School as youngsters and have great stories and memories to share. Recently we hosted an event at Cafe St. Leonard's in collaboration with our local church on June 21st 2025.  We served over 70 bacon butties, along with cake, fresh fruit and bagels.  The community really embraced and supported us, with such positive comments - even requesting that we make it a monthly event!

Time For God

Time For God Services

Once a month on the third Sunday, children are invited to take part in Lay Led services at St. Leonard's Church in Loddington.  The children choose and share a song from our weekly Songs of Praise Worship and lead the activity section of the service.  Most recently, we have thought about acts of kindness linked to Lent, and shared examples of how we demonstrate Trust - one of our six school values.  Families are always warmly welcomed to attend. 

 

October - Harvest  How our love for God can grow like a seed from fruit.

November - Remembrance - why we wear poppies and their significance

December - Christmas Tree Festival and Operation Christmas Child Shoebox Appeal

January - Baptism around the world

February - What are we grateful for?

March - Dramatisation of The Prodigal Son

May - Celebrating Christian Values

June - How does the school serve the community?

July - The Good Samaritan - How are we good friends?

 

Courageous Advocacy

We are Courageous Advocates

Courageous Advocacy links to our Church school ethos of enabling pupils to make ethical choices and to be agents of change.  This includes:

• The act of speaking out against an issue of injustice, often on behalf of those whose voice is not heard. 

• Speaking out, at whatever level this takes place, requires an element of courage. 

• Becoming courageous advocates of change, therefore, must involve being informed about an issue and it must move beyond simply knowing, to saying and doing. 

• Courageous advocacy is a long-term legacy, an endowment to future generations; it is about releasing the possibility of the pupils in our school to serve the common good. 

In Reception and Year 1 

• Children have had talks for the RSPCA, Natonal lifeboats association about animal and water safety.
• Litter picking visit with the children thinking about how they as individuals can help make the village a healthier and cleaner environment.
• In Spring, the children learn about Loddington village, and consider the physical and human features. Children go on a walk and consider what can be done to protect physical features.
• Children plant and grow plants down in the wetlands area during the spring term and help grow and nurture these plants.
• Children make bird feeders down in the wetlands area to help the animals in their local area.

In Year 2

• • Discuss how taking small actions, like helping others or caring for the environment, demonstrates empathy and responsibility towards others.
  • Citizenship PSHE focus: explore ways that we can make our school environment better for all. Conduct democratic votes for elections and discuss importance of School Council and other roles of responsibility.
  • When exploring the world in Geography discuss plastic in oceans and other threats to the environment. Create posters (or small ppt presentations) to explain a cause and/or share important messages with other children and adults.
  • School Council representatives working to organise activities, sharing with the rest of Y2 through their Class Council. Similarly, Eco and Ethos committee members share their actions.
  • Safer Internet Day (26^th February) – Raising awareness for the need to be safe on the internet. Gathering children’s ideas and opinions, with the Digital Leaders supporting activities linked to the event.
  • Explore personal passions of the children, considering how these can be encouraged to flourish, and children be supported in speaking out about what is important to them.
  • Taking part in school-wide action for change, e.g., supporting the Harvest Festival donations. Ensure that children understand the wider impact of taking part in these activities.
  • Use the ‘Little People, Big Dreams’ series of books as examples of courageous advocates in different fields.

In Year 3 and 4

• Through Art, Science and Music, explore the impact of achievements in these fields by studying the work of significant people. Use the “Standing on the shoulders of Giants” book and resources to support this.
• Environmental work linked to Eco Schools – creating posters to remind people in our school community about the importance of saving water and energy. Raise awareness in our local community by organising litter picks and helping to create areas where wildlife can thrive and be safe – bug hotels and bird feeders.
• Recognising and celebrating children’s personal achievements – celebration worship, achievements boards, celebrating successes with one another
• During work in Geography, looking at ways to keep our rivers and waterways pollution free. Work with the Canals and Rivers Trust to become involved supporting local campaigns.
• PSHE work on Citizenship and democracy. School Council/Ethos/Digital Leaders/Eco elections – discussions around how to be fair for all.
• Explore possibilities of educational visits to UK Parliament, or outreach service coming to school to develop understanding of democracy and how we can get our voices heard.

In Year 5 and 6

• Discuss how taking small actions, like helping others or caring for the environment, demonstrates empathy and responsibility towards others. Y5/6 representatives can use these discussions to drive decisions for action for the school’s ECO committee.
• Members of the Ethos Committee contribute to decisions of how the school’s Christians can be promoted, and this has led to such activities of the children creating posters to represent the school’s values.
• Citizenship PSHE focus explore ways that we can make our school environment better for all. Conduct democratic votes for elections and discuss importance of School Council and other roles of responsibility.
• When exploring the world in Geography discuss deforestation and the threats to the environment. Write persuasive letters to explain a cause and/or share important messages with other children and adults and where relevant external agencies such as WWF.
• School Council representatives working to organise activities, sharing with the rest of Y5/6 through their Class Council. Similarly, Eco and Ethos committee members share their actions.
• Safer Internet Day (26^th February) – Raising awareness for the need to be safe on the internet. Gathering children’s ideas and opinions, with the Digital Leaders supporting activities linked to the event.
• Explore personal passions of the children, considering how these can be encouraged to flourish, and children be supported in speaking out about what is important to them.
• Taking part in school-wide action for change, e.g., supporting the Harvest Festival donations. Ensure that children understand the wider impact of taking part in these activities.
• Use the ‘Little People, Big Dreams’ series of books as well as other resources as examples of courageous advocates in different fields.

 

Spirituality

Spirituality Day at Loddington

R/1 explored their relationship with something greater than them as part of our spirituality day. To begin the day, the children enjoyed their forest school session where they thought about their relationship with the world. They worked in teams to collect lots of different natural items around the Wetland area and then used the natural items to create nature faces. They then enjoyed forest bathing and lay quietly on the tarpaulin to look at the sky and have a moment to think about what they could see and hear.  

In the afternoon, R/1 carried on the discussion about our relationship with something greater than us and the children came up with lots of wonderful ideas. They discussed their relationships with their family, friends, God, the world, church, religions and lots more. They then created their own unique heart which a drawing on which represented their own idea of a relationship which is bigger than them. To end our spirituality day, the children enjoyed a calming yoga session together. 

To begin Spirituality Day, Year 2 went to Forest School with Reception and Year 1. They were exploring their relationship with nature by using natural materials such as sticks, stones and leaves to make faces with different emotions;
“I enjoyed using natural materials to make the faces because it was good to be close to nature” -Jamie.
“I liked it because we can use the materials that God gave us” - Henry.

We then did some forest bathing and enjoyed a “Now” moment;
“I liked forest bathing because we were looking at the sky and seeing beautiful birds, clouds and could see trees swishing left and right” - Poppy.
“I liked looking at the clouds and seeing what shape they made, I enjoyed relaxing and slowing down in nature.” - Matilda.

To finish our day, we explored the spiritual concept of windows and discussed “WOW” and “OW” moments. We watched a video all about our wonderful world and discussed wow moments such as the Northen Lights, waterfalls and beautiful scenery and ow moments such as war and deforestation. We then created our own window displays.

Year 3 and 4 explored the meaning of Spirituality by considering the important relationship we have with ourselves, and what makes us all unique.

We began the day with a discussion about how we are all different, and why that is important. We studied ourselves using mirrors and described ourselves to our friends spotting similarities and differences between us all. We then considered how we could represent our uniqueness and each created a split self portrait with one half showing us on the outside and the other representing our personalities, values and what is important to us.

We had a visit from Reverend Andrew, who encouraged us to take regular time to reflect on the small things in our world and appreciate the beauty of the things around us that we may not always notice. We followed this with a “wow” walk of our own around Loddington, where we took photographs of the beauty of our local environment.

“It really is the small things that are the most beautiful” – Maisy F

During this walk we stopped for some reflection time up at the recreation ground and joined in some prayers together.

We completed our day with a guided meditation, where we appreciated stillness and quietness. Following this, we created a “gratitude tree” as a class, where we all wrote something we were grateful for on leaves.

For their Spirituality Day, Year 5&6 explored the meaning of spirituality through looking at connections towards others. The children had a special visitor to begin the work, Reverend Andrew, who spoke to the children about spirituality and discussed the importance of slowing down and paying attention to all the sounds & sights around them. The children then went to the spiritual garden and reflected on its importance and ways it could possibly be improved. 

Back in the classroom, the children then focused on empathy and looked at scenario cards. In groups they discussed how the person may be feeling in the situation and ways to possibly help.   

The children then worked as a class on two collaborative pieces of art. The first, they all thought of a positive affirmation or ways of being kind and this was displayed on a poster. The second, a huge picture that has been split into 32 parts and they each had a square to colour how they wished.  

Throughout the day the children reflected on what empathy is, why our connection to others is important and how we can always treat each other with kindness.  

 

Ethos Committee

 

Ethos Committee 2025-2026

Every year children from each class are given the opportunity to be part of our School Ethos Committee, who meet fortnightly.  Key roles and responsibilities include:

• Supporting community events.  

• Setting up for Collective Worship in classrooms.

• Initiating ideas to support the Christian ethos of the school - most recently redesigning values boards for the playground.

• Leading Worship linked to our school values.

• Raising awareness for local charities - food donations for Homestart in Kettering.

Over the summer of 2025.  the Ethos Committee held a competition across the school to redesign our special six school values boards on the playground.  We are delighted with the results. The winning entries were printed and put up on the front playground for all to see and to remind us of how important our values are.