Author Archive: pacestaging

PACE UPDATE!

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We’re now into December and that means Christmas Lessons!! We have started this years run of Christmas in a Box lessons this week! So far we have been into Hautes Capelles and La Mare. Over the next few weeks we will be delivering this lesson to about 265 Year 3 children across Guernsey!

We have also been busy delivering lessons in secondary schools! Lisa and Howard Davenport (Eldad Elim) have been teaching sessions on ‘A Christian World View’ looking at the fundamentals of what makes someone a Christian at La Mare with Year 7. The students have been asking some great questions like ‘How do we know God exists?’ and ‘What happens when we die?’. We have enjoyed teaching these sessions and are looking forward to our last one next week!  At Blanchelande Lisa and Tom Saddington (Catholic Church) have been leading lessons on the ‘Christian views on Creation’ focusing on the question ‘Are Science and the Bible compatible?’. Again these sessions lead to some very interesting discussions.

Finally we have our next message from Eleanor about SWYM!

In the last blog, I mentioned that we are very excited about a new partnership between PACE and SWYM (South West Youth Ministries).

SWYM’s vision and passion is that every child and young person in the South West (and now obviously, in Guernsey!) would encounter Jesus, know him and make a choice to live for more.

That means reaching out to children and young people in all their diversity, whatever that looks like; for example, ethnic diversity, different socio-economic backgrounds, children and young people who have additional needs. My family has moved around quite a bit and so I’ve had the opportunity to be involved in a variety of churches in the UK, NZ and now in Guernsey. I’ve observed that welcoming ALL children and young people can throw up challenges for churches and there have often been times when I would have loved more help and support in this area.  

It’s fantastic that SWYM have the opportunity to partner with PACE in Guernsey because what PACE is already doing is completely aligned with SWYM’s vision. For over 30 years PACE has worked in Guernsey schools. Lisa and Sarah and the volunteer team do such an amazing job and they aim to reach every child in every school, every year.

Back soon to tell you more about what the partnership will look like in practice.

Love Eleanor  

PACE Update

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Last week we had a great time with Chrissie Salmon from Shiloh Church for our Quiet Morning. We spent time looking at how God is our shelter and we can come to him with all our anxieties and worries in life. We focused on David’s heartfelt, honest Psalm 27 where he finishes with the encouraging thought of “I remain confident in the goodness of God.”

PACE have been asked to decorate a Christmas tree at The Rock Community Church so we have been spending our lunch clubs decorating baubles! We’ve encouraged all of our PACE Club members to decorate one or two and write their school on the back. They have got super creative and they look great!

Over the next few weeks our blogs will have input from Eleanor White, introducing the work of SWYM and how we plan to partner with them in Guernsey.

Hello from SWYM!

Hey there, my name is Eleanor White. I’ve recently started working for an organisation called South West Youth Ministries. SWYM partner with churches and other charities to support them in working with children and young people. About 18 months ago, some churches here in Guernsey invited SWYM to explore what it would look like if they were involved in partnering with local Christians. Having me, working for SWYM, but resident in Guernsey, is the latest step in the ongoing journey.

We’re really excited because in Guernsey, SWYM are going to be working in partnership with PACE. So over the next while I’m going to be sharing some details on the PACE blog about what this is going to look like.

I thought today I’d introduce myself. Some of you may recognise me because I’m already involved with PACE as a volunteer, doing OT Minis and helping out where I can. I love working with children and young people and have spent my adult life doing this in various ways, including being the mum to six fabulous children of my own. I live out West, in St. Peter’s, and go to St. Peter’s Church.  I really love being outside and being active. I’m not very good at sitting still; I enjoy a quick game of Banagrams but Scrabble is way too slow.

I’ll be back soon to tell you more about SWYM.

Love Eleanor

PACE Update

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We’re very excited to have started two new OT Mini courses at La Mare Primary with Lisa and Bryan Pill making their debut and at Notre Dame with Tom Saddington, Frances Ogier and Sarah. It’s great to be able to start new partnerships within our presenter team and be able to continue with what Phil started. Next week Sarah and Eleanor White will also be starting a course at St Mary and St Michael too.

We are also just starting this half term’s primary school assembly. We have chosen the theme “Heroes” and look at how we can be everyday heroes. We use the story of Gideon and discover how he was a hero, not by his own strength but by God’s. Even though he wasn’t sure, he followed God’s instructions and went on to be a hero! We encourage the children that even though we don’t have the tech of Iron Man or the strength of the Incredible HULK, we can still be a hero everyday:

  • By developing your character so that you’re helpful and respectful in the things you think, do and say.
  • By overcoming challenges and not giving up when things look too difficult or too hard.
  • By being enthusiastic in trying to be the best person you can be.

At the beginning of the week, Lisa was joined by Howard Davenport (Eldad Elim) to lead an assembly to the Year 7s at La Mare High. The assembly is one we’ve done before looking at not letting the past dictate your future. This includes the popular toothpaste challenge where two students have to draw one for our presenters. They are they challenged to put they toothpaste back into the tube – which they can’t do! Who do you think they drew? And whose drawing was better?

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HALF TERM!

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Half term has arrived which means the first half term of the first term has come to an end. It has been a very busy half term, with many lessons, assemblies and clubs going on. We have really enjoyed re-connecting with students after the summer break in our lunch clubs and getting to know new students who have joined. This term we have looked at:

– How is the new school year going? – We made paper airplanes and had a competition to see who’s went the furthest. We were thinking about how we are all on a journey and come to our destinations in different ways. 

– Harvest. We thought about what we can do to help others who are in need. Sometimes big issues can seem overwhelming and we don’t think we can do anything. But we challenged the students to think of one small thing they could do that if lots of people did that would make a big difference.

– Lying. We had a discussion around the question ‘Is it ever OK to lie?’ There was a lot of debate around in certain scenarios then it might be OK to tell a lie but usually if it meant you were protecting someone. We concluded that it was better to be honest as that shows more about who we are as a person and a friend. 

– Being brave. This week we have been talking about situations we might need to be courageous in and looking at the story of David and Goliath and where David got his strength from to take on Goliath. 

We really enjoy our lunch clubs and sharing with the students on different topics and hearing what they have to say. Thank you to all our volunteers who make running these clubs possible. We run 7 lunch clubs a week and without the support of local churches it wouldn’t be possible. 

This term we have had one BOLT club start at Blanchelande primary school led by Tom (Catholic Church) and Janet (Vazon Elim). They have really enjoyed getting to know the students and the children are engaging well with the sessions. 

We just want to say a massive THANK YOU to all our volunteers who have helped this term. We really wouldn’t have been able to do the work without you all. 

Enjoy the half term break and we look forward to all the new and exciting opportunities we have booked in next half term! 

PACE Update

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This week Lisa and Howard (Minister at Eldad Elim Church) have been in La Mare High School delivering lessons on Christian views on prejudice and discrimination. The lesson focuses on the example of Jesus and the children look at the story of ‘The Man Born Blind’ (John 9:1-12) and ‘The Woman at the Well’ (John 4). They act out these stories in groups and think about ‘what was the prejudice/discrimination happening?’ and ‘What did Jesus do?’. They all agree that Jesus’ example is one of kindness and equality for all people regardless of who they are or where they come from. The students have engaged really well in these sessions and have enjoyed acting out the stories. We finish the lesson by thinking about how Christians are persecuted for their faith around the world to day and play this video from Open Doors https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXB8gx8-Wdk. The students are often shocked to discover that this is happening in our world today. 

Sarah and our amazing volunteers have also been delivering some lessons to Years 1 and 2 on Creation. This is a lovely lesson where we use Godly Play to tell the story of Creation and have discussions about the days. The children then get to create something of their own with Playdoh and we talk about how they feel about it.

Our Harvest primary assembly is going well, with Sarah, Lisa and Tom (Saddington) delivering it to many schools over the last few weeks too. Below are some photos from Acorn House. In the assembly we spell out the word “Harvest” and then tell the story of Ruth, Naomi and Boaz and rearrange the letters to spell out words such as “starve”, “eat”, “have” and “share”. All to do with Harvest and encouraging the children to think about what they can do to be a kind community and share with other people.

At first, the word is spelt wrong so we have to get into the right order!
Ruth and Naomi had to find food to EAT!

Please keep praying for our work, for the children and young people we come into contact with and the teachers and school staff we speak to.

New Term!

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We’re back! It’s a new term, a new school year and a new team, well sort of! As you know Phil and Victoria left us in the summer, moving on to other adventures. So Lisa and Sarah are the current PACE team, alongside all our wonderful volunteers who help us run so many of our activities. We’re still hiring so please keep this in your prayers. We also celebrated Lisa being with PACE for 10 years! Congratulations Lisa!

Over the last few years we’ve started running volunteer training days in September and before Covid we invited Prayer Spaces in Schools over, which unfortunately had to be postponed. However this past weekend we finally held our Prayer Spaces training day. We were blessed to have Tim, a founder member of the Prayer Spaces in Schools national team, now the GB Team Leader and Liz who is on the GB oversight team, works for Bristol Schools Connection and was one of the masterminds behind Christmas and Easter in a Box!

Tim and Liz stayed with us for two days and we were able to spend time with them hearing stories, being inspired and encouraged and getting to know them. On Saturday we had 20 volunteers and supporters attend some fantastic training, where we got to learn about the vision, theology and values of Prayer Spaces and the impact they have of school life and the children/students. We spent time setting up some stations and learning about how we can improve and create effective prayer stations. We can’t wait to put what we’ve learnt into action and provide some meaningful, peaceful, reflective moments in our schools.

This week we’re starting our run of primary assemblies, with the theme of Harvest. We will be running these at Vale, St Mary and St Michael’s and Vauvert with Amherst, Forest, Acorn House, Melrose, Vauvert and Notre Dame next week.

Summer Newsletter 2022!

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We’ve had a fantastic term with many opportunities to explore faith with the children and students of Guernsey. However we are sad to see the departure of two very valued members of our PACE family, Phil and Victoria. We hope you join with us in thanking God for them and asking for his peace and guidance in their future endeavours. PACE are looking for a new team member so please keep this in your prayers too.

Here is a link to our latest video which outlines what we have been doing during 2021/2022. We played this at our AGM as a summary of our work.

We hope you enjoy reading our newsletter below!

Have a great summer!

PACE Newsletter Summer 2022Download

End of Term

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We’re at the end of term! We hope everyone has a great summer holiday! Our term has been winding down but last week was still particularly busy!

We held our last Prayer Spaces event at La Houguette with the theme of Looking Back and Looking Forward. The school asked for stations that would help the children reflect on what they had enjoyed about their past school year and what they were looking forward to next year as they move up. So we went for some new stations including Resilience Building, where we could think about what helps us to have another go, who do we speak to when we feel a bit low or sad. We then added a brick to make a collective resilience wall! Another new station was Transforming Butterflies. We spoke with the children about change and how they will be moving up to a new year. On one wing they could write something they enjoyed about their current year and on the other they could put what they’re excited about for the upcoming year. They also loved decorating these!

We particularly enjoyed reading what helps the children build resilience with one child writing “Look at pictures of pandas.” Well of course! What a wonderful insight! Others wrote, “Going for a bike ride”, “Speaking to my mum and dad” and “I like speaking to God.”

We also held our AGM Presentation Evening on Tuesday 5th July. It was an emotional evening as we said goodbye to Phil and Victoria, both moving on from PACE at the end of this term. It was wonderful to see so many supporters join us for the evening as we reflected on what we have achieved over the last year and also announcing plans going forward. We are so grateful for all that Phil and Victoria have bought to the team over the last few years and will miss them both!

So we have reached the end of term, with still a few things to tie up and a newsletter to follow, we hope you have a great weekend!

PACE Update

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Last Saturday we had a fantastic day of learning at NT Live with our visiting speaker Tom Greene from Walk Through The Bible.

The day took us through 40 key events in the New Testament from “Greece – Language” to “Wait… Christ”. Alongside this we learnt hand signs for each event to help us remember these and the timeline easier. It was very informative, a lot of fun and those that joined us gave great feedback! Keep practising those signs! 

We are also in the midst of our Year 6 Leaver’s Lessons. This year we’re visiting 704 Year 6 students in 18 schools to deliver the lesson looking at Changes, Challenges and Choices. Lisa and Phil have been leading these alongside local church leaders who have also shared their stories from when they moved to secondary schools. Local churches have also generously donated an “It’s Your Move” book for every child moving up. This book includes tips, question and answers, activities, puzzles and is a very useful resource. One fun element of the lesson is the Speed Stack challenge – giving something a try and not giving up. 

Please keep these Year 6 pupils in your prayers as they come to the end of their time at primary school and prepare for September. It can be an anxious, exciting, confusing time as we all know. 

PACE Update

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We hope you all had a lovely bank holiday weekend! Say hello to Birdy!  Birdy is helping us over the next few weeks with our summer primary assembly to encourage our children that we are all important, valued and loved and that God cares about us. Birdy gets excited about The Queens Jubilee but sad that he’s not as important as the Queen. We teach Birdy that “…not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it…” We explain that God also asks us to encourage others to know they are valued and loved too. So far Birdy has received a warm welcome from the children!

Before half term we held a Prayer Spaces at Vale Primary where we haven’t hosted one for a long time. It was great to transform a room and see the children’s faces when they walked in and saw the change. We really valued our time at Vale and had some great feedback from the children and teachers. We look forward to going back again soon! The stations we used here included the Sorry Bin, Worry Lillies, Fizzy Forgivness, Quiet Tent and Acts of Kindness. Below are some photos.

Finally we have an exciting event coming up – NT Live with visiting speaker Tom Greene from Walk Through The Bible. This is a snapshot into what we are teaching in your local schools and will also be a valuable day of Bible teaching.
The event is on Saturday 18th June, 9.30am – 4pm at Les Camps Methodist Church. Tea, coffee and biscuits (maybe cake too!) will be provided, but please bring a packed lunch with you. 

We would really like to encourage you to either visit https://www.bible.org.uk/wtb_event_tickets.php and purchase tickets for the event which is at the top of the list or email hellopace@paceguernsey.com to reserve a spot and opt to pay £14 on the day. Either way we would love to see others benefit from this great opportunity and Bible teaching.