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HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY
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One of the Foundation Christmas craft
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The Biggest Gift and our Gift
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Children love presents at Christmas. Buying presents and managing expectations puts pressure on parents and carers. Yet beyond the siren calls of the advertisers, there is an impulse to reach out and. to show love. This reflects the biggest gift of all which is offered to everyone – the birth of the Christ child.
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The work of REinspired is our gift to local schools, offered in love and at minimal cost. Through the hard work of staff and volunteers we act as partners with the schools, offering help to deliver the Christianity elements in the syllabus. At a time when the number of children attending church has been dropping, we present to each child the chance to learn about the Christian faith from believers, for whom Christianity is real.
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The gift we offer as we share the treasures of our faith is part of the broader RE syllabus alongside learning about other faiths and world views. We clearly state in every session that we are not trying to change the beliefs of the children. What we can do is give children greater insight into the faith that has shaped our culture in so many ways, helping them to develop a religious literacy so they can be good citizens in our increasingly diverse and multi-faith society.
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It's been a blessed term welcoming new staff and a trustee:
Catherine, Mark, Sarah and Sue B
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REinspired is excited to introduce Catherine Matthews to the team, in the new position of Engagement Director. Her role primarily covers building both the profile and reach of REinspired, from schools and volunteers to funding models and grant applications.
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If you or your church are interested in finding out more about how REinspired can support you partnering with your local school to explore faith and life’s meaning get in touch with Catherine.
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Welcoming Mark, our new Trustee
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I’ve been involved as a volunteer with REinspired (REi) for over 20 years now. When I moved to Reading in 2005 to take up the post of Anglican Chaplain at the University of Reading I began working with REi in my local schools.
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REinspired’s ethos of gathering Christians from different traditions to work together seemed such an obvious but, surprisingly, rare thing to do. I especially valued the Q&A panels where a variety of different Christians were free to give their differing views.
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Later, when I became the Chair of Reading’s Statutory Advisory Committee on RE, I came to increasingly understand the value in expressing diversity in education. No group of religious believers always believe all the same things. In a world of conflict, modelling respectful collaboration, and living in an undefended way with difference, seems to me to be really valuable.
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I’m delighted now, on moving to become vicar at St Nicolas church, Earley, to find myself at the ‘heart’ of REinspired, and now to become a Trustee. I look forward to many more years of involvement!
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F1 Christmas - new Team leader
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It was a privilege to recently lead the Nativity session for F1 (nursery) at New Town Primary School. We began with the Christmas story, and then the children chose from activities — making angels, candles, or stable scenes, playing with playdough or matching cards, or hearing the story again with knitted figures. It was a joy to share the story with children who may not have heard it before, and wonderful to see their excitement as they learned about the birth of Jesus.
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This has been a busy first term as Team Leader. I’ve led sessions for F1, F2, Year 1, 2 and 6, and have learned so much — especially from Carrie — while feeling blessed to be part of such a supportive team. Having volunteered with REinspired before, I‘m enjoying this opportunity to step into the role of team leader.
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Teaching children about Jesus is a joy, and I love to bring my own style to sessions.
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Yr1 Creation - new team leader
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I have been part of the REinspired family for about 20 years having originally been involved as a trustee and volunteer in the early 2000’s. As a primary school teacher at Alfred Sutton I enjoyed taking my class to REinspired sessions. After retiring in 2022 I became a volunteer again and then took over as team leader for Alfred Sutton and Redlands schools in September.
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It is a privilege to work with my colleagues on the REi team and I am gradually finding my way around the huge number of resources we use and trying to remember all the things I need to do as a leader. I love being able to spend time with the children – it is the best parts of teaching - talking with the children, being creative, encouraging them to ask questions and use their imaginations.
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In the Creation sessions with Year 1 it was exciting to see the awe and wonder on the children’s faces as we looked at images of God’s wonderful world. Also to talk with them about how we can look after the world that God has given us.
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Below you'll find details of REinspired's next training, craft café and Quiz night dates:
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You are welcome to come to either or all. Click on the button to register.
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Mary, Bishop of Reading, came to visit us
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We've added information and news of our home hub, Earley & East Reading, and other local hubs: Caversham, Woodley, Central Reading and Southcote - take a look here
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Yr2 What is the Good News Jesus brings is a lovely session about the friendship, forgiveness and peace Jesus gives us using the story of Jesus talking to the woman at the well. This is a great story but the cultural context does need a bit of explaining to understand the themes and their meaning. Over the years we have tried different ways of telling this story, but still the children find it difficult to understand how radically Jesus is her friend and gives her forgiveness and peace. So this year I thought maybe we could write the context into the story – and tell it with puppets!
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We have a lovely set of puppets in our resources – however there are two drawbacks:
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1: they need 1 person per puppet – which limits anything to three characters in our smaller schools; 2: the puppets are mainly pale skinned whereas most of our children have different coloured skins! What to do?
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We decided to use different coloured sock puppets, where a puppeteer can easily do two characters – giving us six characters available even in our smaller schools. I attempted this in two schools in November, and the children really loved the puppets and seemed to understand the story a lot better. We tried this sitting under a table with our arms in the air and our scripts on the floor, which worked well for our more physically able volunteers, but some others did struggle!! So it’s a work in progress – we’re always thinking about how to make our sessions more relevant, up to date and fun for everyone!
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We are so grateful for the support you give in time, prayer and donations.
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Grateful to be part of a supportive team at REinspired.
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New syllabus questions written and delivered.
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A good welcome at our schools, from teachers and pupils.
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Pupils who heard the Christmas story for the first time.
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Our people and resources to be a blessing.
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Valuable times at our training day, craft café and quiz evening.
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Encouraging feedback from one of the Foundation pupils:
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"The children also had lots of positive things to say about the session. One of the parents remarked that their son had gone home and said it was his best day at school ever because of the visit to the church!"
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