Pupils are well prepared for life in modern Britain.  British values underpin the curriculum with a focus on developing mutual respect and tolerance.  Display boards include a wealth of information including celebration of a wide range of festivals and reflect the good promotion of pupil’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

              Ofsted 2016

Click here to access the Worcestershire Agreed Syllabus for RE

They have agreed to fund over £500 to provide each class at The Beacon with a set of illustrated Children’s Bibles.  These will enable each pupil to use individual copies of the Bible for weekly ‘Bible Story’ guided reading. This will promote our knowledge and understanding of the place of Christianity within modern Britain today, while enhancing our understanding of the key Christian values within the Bible, that form the ‘spirit’ of our curriculum;

• Kindness/compassion/friendship
• Thankfulness/gratitude/service to others
• Justice/equality
• Hope/endurance
• Wisdom/humility
• Peace/non violence

We have been learning about ‘Harvest Festival’ and what it means to Christians today.  Christians give thanks to God for food Harvested throughout the year.  To show their thankfulness to God Christians believe it is their duty to help others in need and less fortunate. 

Sharon from the Charity ‘Nightstop’ came to visit to talk to us about how we can help vulnerable, local young people, who are at risk of becoming homeless. Useful food or hygiene Items were generously donated by pupils and their families, to be given directly to local young people in need. Sharon was extremely grateful on the young people’s behalf.

We thought about the key values of ‘Thankfulness’, ‘Kindness’ and ‘Compassion’.

For Harvest Festival we collected items for 'Nightstop'

The Christian creation story explains how in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth and all of the living things.  It took God six days and on the seventh day God rested and said every seventh day should be a holy day of rest.  We have been learning about the importance of Sundays to Christians and many families in Britain today.  We discussed how we enjoy our Sundays and how faith and belief can influence how other people spend theirs. How do you look after your own well-being to rest and relax on Sundays?

In Art we used clay to sculpt Diwa Lamps for Diwali.

When the nights start to become long and dark it is time to enjoy Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Light.  We listened to the story of Rama and Sita and discussed the spiritual symbolism of ‘darkness and light’ and what it means to Hindus.  We looked at the comparisons between the celebrations of Diwali and Christmas both have decorations, bright colours, decoration lights, candles, special food, cards, treats and gifts.  In art pupils used their clay work skills to make Diwa Lamps to attract Lakshmi ‘The Goddess of Good Fortune’ into Hindu homes.

Archie creating his 'Coil Pot' Diwa Lamp.

Thank you to all pupils and adults who helped us to celebrate Christmas with our Ocarina Club, Christmas Carol Concert. Everyone overcame pre-performance nerves and the concert really helped bring us together and get us into the festive spirit with traditional Christmas Carols. Listening to the music, it was testimony to the children working and practicing together.

Maddison and Leah chose to make a ‘Church’ out of K’Nex in Design and Technology.  Maddison has been learning about ‘Special Places’ in RE.  Including why churches are important to Christians. Pupils were given a challenge in Design and Technology to ‘Make a house with an opening door’.  The girls put their designs together to create a rather impressive Church.

“Here’s the Church, here’s the steeple,

Open the door and here’s all the people”

Monty made a great observation and gave the girl’s a complement on their design and building skills when he said it reminded him of Pershore Abbey in Worcestershire.