2022/23 Archive

World Religions Week

During the week of Monday 16th January and Friday 20th January, we celebrated World Religions Week at St Botolph’s.

Our pupils took part in a range of activities designed to promote an understanding and peace between all religions, encouraging them to learn about other faiths and their followers.

Each year group also visited a place of worship or took part in workshops throughout the week:

Year R visited St Botolphs Church. We were welcomed by the church wardens who explained their roles in the church and identified parts of the church. They explained that there is a church mouse in the church and challenged the children to find it. We explored the church for ourselves and were free to ask questions.

During World Religion Week, Year 1 visited St Botolph’s church. Before visiting, we discussed the key features found in a church and why they are there. Once we arrived, we explored and had an opportunity to ask questions. We then returned to school and shared what we had learnt, comparing the church with other places of worship.

Throughout the week, in Year 2, we have immersed ourselves into the 6 main world religions and explored religious symbols, places of worship, beliefs and religious artefacts to develop our knowledge and understanding. We compared values and beliefs across the 6 main religions and created a poster displaying some of the shared values and messages which we believe help to make the world a better place.

In Year 3, we are studying Sikhism. This week we were lucky enough to visit our local one in Gravesend. We had a tour and question and answer session with Mrs Gill and got to try food in the community kitchen.

 

For World Religion Week, Year 4 attended our church St.Botolph’s. During our visit, we looked at the stained glass windows around the church which depict Saints as well as Jesus and his mother Mary. We were very fortunate to be given a talk from Marion Fielder-White on the history of St Botolph’s Church and how it dates back to Saxon Times which we will also been learning about this year. Marion pointed out to us in the East window behind the main altar, St Botolph is included in the window. We also listened to the story of St Botolph, as Year 4 will be retelling the story on St Botolph’s Day on the 17th June.

 

In Year 5, we had the fantastic opportunity to go to the Gurdwara. We were given a guided tour, had the opportunity to try food served in the langar (which was delicious) and the opportunity to see how Sikh’s worship and practice. Once we were back in school, we looked further at the different parts of the Gurdwara, and looked at key beliefs in Sikhism. We then thought about how similar some of the key beliefs are to our own beliefs, whilst also linking it to other religions around the world.

This week, Year 6 began by looking at the origins of World Religion day and how it was formed by the Bahai faith. We then went on to comparing two religions and finding similarities between them. After that we looked at the Sikh place of worship and matched the description to an image of each item in the Gurdwara. Finally, we went on to learn about Sikhism and their key beliefs and talked about how all religions have the same fundamental principles. We are now completing a piece of art to show a key Sikh belief.