Stations of the Cross - Thursday 29th March 2018

To celebrate Easter in 2018, Bolney CE Primary School's Spirituality Group planned and organised the Stations of the Cross to be held in the school grounds following the fantastic success of the Passion Play two years before. The Spirituality Group (Mrs Kenny, Mrs Harvey, Fr. Keith, Mr Sutton and Mrs Glew) wrote reflections and prayers to accompany ten pieces of artwork created by eleven children in the school.

We asked eleven of our young artists to draw their representation of an aspect of Jesus' journey from when he was condemned to death by Pilate, to his death and burial. Mrs Harvey shared some images used for the Stations of the Cross around the world with the children. They then researched their scene and thought hard about how to draw it in a way that enables the children in school to reflect on its meaning. These ten amazing images were painted onto large acrylic sheets by the children in each class so they could be hung around our grounds.

We talked with the all children about aspects of Jesus' journey in worship and learnt two hymns, Lord of the Dance and Colours of Day, ready for this special event. The Spirituality Group carefully selected passages from the Bible and wrote prayers and reflections about what happened to Jesus on that journey to share with the children. In writing the reflections we tried to ensure that the children were able to relate aspects of this journey and its meanings to their own life and what Jesus was intending for everyone to understand and do. We invited people from our community to read the reflections, these included: Rev. Ruth, Mrs Pym, Mr Allaby, Mr and Mrs Glew, along with Fr. Keith and Mr Sutton.

Families and more people from the community joined us for the afternoon of Maundy Thursday where the children were in their house teams so siblings were together. Unfortunately it was raining on the day so we placed 5 pieces of artwork in the school and 5 in the church so we could still journey through them. We began the afternoon together in the hall and sung Lord of the Dance accompanied by Mrs Glew on the guitar one of our pupils on the drums. We introduced the Stations of the Cross and then one house team at a time began their journey around the school and church, visiting each of the ten stations. At each station the adults read the chosen Bible passage, shared the reflection and said a prayer, giving the children and their families’ time to contemplate the meaning. They answered any questions the children had about each event. This was very moving, and as each group journeyed between each station they sang the taize, ˜Jesus remember me".

While each house team waited to begin their journey or for the others to finish, they completed some reflection activities based on the Stations of the Cross in class. At the end of the day we all met to sing Colours of Day and Fr. Keith gave us a blessing. The Friends of Bolney kindly provided refreshments for everyone.

The childrens artwork was stunning and they helped everyone to reflect on the events two thousand years ago and how they can help us now in our lives. It was certainly an afternoon to remember and cherish.