PACE Update!

Over the weekend Sarah went to a children’s and families workers conference called Hand in Hand in Eastbourne. She attended talks about sharing the whole Bible story with children, creating experiences for children to encounter God, mentoring and walking with children in their lives and faith and innovative ways to engage with the Bible. It was a great opportunity to meet with other schools workers, youth and children’s workers and look at new resources. Sarah also got to say hello to Bob Hartman and he very kindly recorded a little video for us which you can find on our Instagram!

This week we were invited to visit Year 1 at Acorn House to chat with them about why church is a special place. We invited Tom Saddington and Jon Honor to join Sarah to answer some questions the children had prepared. It was a very fun lesson and they engaged really well. They loved stained glass windows and learning about what else is done in churches during the week. The children were then designing their own churches which was fun to see! We are hoping that we will be able to develop the input we have with infants in our schools.

In lunch clubs we’ve been having some interesting discussions with students about how the world came to be and delving deeper into some questions they might have – including “Where did God come from?” Not an easy question to answer! But we love grappling these topics with our young people.

Finally this week we had a lovely Quiet Morning with Jacky Cottrell at Forest Methodist Church where we spent time reflecting on who Jesus is to us and looking at putting ourselves into some of the Gospels using the book A Quiet Word by Nick Fawcett. We spent time reflecting and just being still which was great!

Summer Newsletter 2022!

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!

End of Term

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

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

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. 
 

PACE Update

Last week we held a Prayer Spaces event at La Mare Primary as we have been doing the past few years. The focus this year was “Being Kind to Others and Being Kind to the World.”

The stations we set up were:

Plastic Planet – where we discussed the plastic pollution in the sea and looked at how we can increase our use of reusable products instead of single use. 
Helping Hands – the children could put acts of kindness into an order, thinking about which they thought were important to them and then choose one to do during the next few days.
Quiet Area – our bubble tube tent where many nearly fell asleep! 
Carbon Footprints – a brand new station discussing how we can save energy in the everyday things and reduce our carbon footprint.
Thankful Ribbons – reflecting on what the children were thankful for. 

The children responded very well to each of these stations and reminded us how aware they are of current issues in the world including the Ukraine conflict. Many commented on being thankful for their freedom whilst thinking of these and Liberation Day. The older children thought more practically about helping with beach cleans, turning off the taps and lights more as well as taking the brave step to be kind to someone when it’s not always easy.  

A huge thank you to the school and to our wonderful volunteers who helped us over the three days. Next week we are at Vale Primary for three days too. We’re very excited as it’s been a few years since we last held a Prayer Spaces there. Please pray for a positive response from the school and children.


We also had a great week at La Mare High School exploring ‘Evil & Suffering’ with their Year 8 – good discussions and some very thoughtful contributions from the 4 classes of almost 100 students. We talked of the mixed blessing(?) of ‘free will’ but left them with the promise that ultimately all wrongs and injustice will be righted with the promise that ‘….God will wipe away every tear’ and there will be ‘no more death or mourning or crying or pain’ as ‘God will make everything new’ (Revelation 21:4-5). Amazing to have the opportunity to share such a message of hope in such difficult and challenging times. This year has seen a new breakthrough at La Mare High as we have so far been involved in teaching Years 7, 8, 10 and 11.

 

Weekly Update

This week our primary assemblies will be continuing at Amherst, Castel and La Mare de Carteret primary schools. We will also be visiting Blanchelande for an OT Mini presentation.

Our BOLT clubs are into their second week, looking at “God Loves Us”.

In senior lunch clubs we are starting our series on emotions and this week we are looking at sadness. We focus on the verse in Ecclesiastes which explains how there is ‘a time for everything’ and that includes being sad. Sadness is emotional pain which we need to acknowledge so that we can heal properly after bad things happen to us. It can also helps us to empathise and care for other people during difficult times.

We have one senior assembly this week at Ladies College, where we will be encouraging the students to not let fear hold them back when faced with new activities or challenges. Instead they can allow that fear to be a springboard, helping them focus on the task and succeed. The assembly takes inspiration from the disciples who were afraid after Jesus died, hiding away in the upper room, but after their encounter with Jesus they were ready to go out and tell the world about Jesus despite the consequences of those actions. We remind the students that they are not alone in feeling afraid and that talking about it can allow others to help them through those tough times. Below are some of the inspirational images that we used in a PowerPoint during the assembly.

 

Join the PACE team!

There are ten days left to apply for the Schools’ Worker position!

If you’re interested in joining our team, have a look at the advertisement below and get in touch. We’d love to talk to you!