Welcome To Our New Website!
Welcome To Our New Website!
Ellwood Community Primary School

Spiritual Development

Spiritual development at Ellwood is achieved by:
  • Giving pupils the opportunity to explore values and beliefs, including religious beliefs and the way in which they impact on people’s lives. 
  • Experiencing enjoyment and fascination in learning. 
  • Supporting pupils to reflect on their experiences. 
  • Using imagination and creativity in learning. 
Sponsored Walk for Mrs Marshall 
 
The children walked 7.5K throughout the day. We are so proud of the children for showing our school value of resilience and continuing to walk even when they started feeling tired. It was lovely to spend the day outside in nature, something Mrs Marshall loved. 
Mrs Marshall's reflection area.
 
As you may be aware, Mrs Marshall, our Deputy Head Teacher passed away last year. This was a sad time for our whole school community. 
 
We wanted to remember Mrs Marshall and after discussions with children and staff, we thought that a lovely quiet reflection area in our school grounds would be a lovely way to remember her. Mrs Marshall was a very quiet, patient person and loved the outdoors - so this was perfect!
 
Children and adults are able to spend time sitting on the bench relaxing. They can absorb the wonderful quiet atmosphere. They are able to reflect on anything like like, particularly people they may have lost. 
 
The area has some lovely plants and flowers which look and smell beautiful. 
Garden 
 
The children spend time in the garden looking at and appreciating nature. They are aware of the beauty of the world around them.  
Remembrance Day 
 
Each year we celebrate remembrance day and take time to reflect on those who help protect us and keep us safe. We read poems, sing songs and say prayers. Reverend Michelle attends our assemblies and enjoys visiting our school. 
Trips 
 
We enjoy going on different trips and we especially enjoyed visiting the Wild Place in Bristol. We enjoyed just sitting and looking at the animals and thinking about how wonderful they are and how fascinating our world is. 
Visitors
 
Reverend Michelle and Open the Book visit our school regularly and read stories to us. We also have the opportunity to act out plays linked to Bible stories. We are so grateful they help us and teach us about a religion and help us to develop spiritually. 
Gloucester Cathedral Visit
 
On Monday 18th March Year 3, 4 and 5 visited Gloucester Cathedral. We had a lovely day touring the Cathedral and identifying features of religious places. We were inspired by the Stained Glass Windows, stone work and art within the building. 
2023-2024 Learning
 
Chestnut class have enjoyed mixing primary colours in art.
Trips
As part of Ancient Civilisation topics, Willow and Sycamore visited the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The children took part in a work shop based on Shang Dynasty and carried out activities in the Museum.   
Chestnut and Beech class have visited local areas such as The Dean Heritage Museum and Goodrich Castle. 
Willow class visit the Cheltenham Literacy festival each year and are amazed at meeting some of their favourite authors! 
We attend whole-school trips to wildlife centres to enrich the pupils science curriculum. 
Each Christmas we enjoy a pantomime trip, this year was our first at Hereford and the children really enjoyed the performance. 
Each term a class attends the local gymnastic centre as part of their PE curriculum. This is an exciting opportunity for the pupils that they always look forwards to. 
Visit to Coalway Methodist Chapel
 
Chestnut and Beech had a lovely time visiting Rev Michelle at Coalway Methodist Chapel. It was great to be able to look at the features of the building. We learnt about the key characters in the nativity. We were very lucky as Rev Michelle also gave each child a nativity Christmas tree decoration. Thank you Rev Michelle.
English - Where possible we aim to immerse pupils in their topics and provide exciting and fascinating 'hooks'. To immerse the pupils in their English unit based on, 'The Owl who was Afraid of the dark', a local resident came into school with her barn owl. She talked to the pupils about her owl and shared lots of interesting facts. The pupils then asked lots of their own questions. We took time to reflect on our own experiences of pets and animals and the positive benefit they can have in our lives. 
The children in Oak class are fascinated by watching the frogspawn turn into tadpoles. 
Festivals and Celebrations 
 
We have a festivals display outside the school hall. This is up dated regularly to keep up-to-date with festivals and celebrations throughout the year. We have whole class assemblies based on these festivals.  
 
Some of the festivals we've celebrated so far are...
The whole school learnt about the importance of harvest festival in Christianity, they donated food for a local food bank and showcased songs and poems in an assembly for parents and careers.
We celebrated Christmas through lots of different activities including a Nativity performance for parents/carers. 
We  had a whole class assembly to learn about the celebration of Purim. We learnt about how it is celebrated. One of the children came in the following day and created a poster about Purim.
The children in Oak class learnt about Hanukkah being a Jewish festival within music. They then looked at some traditional Jewish instruments. The children danced along to the Hora dance. They also learnt about the festival of Diwali and made clay diya lamps and talked about how people celebrate the Diwali festival.

 

 

 

 

School Garden
 
We are very fortunate to have such a wonderful school garden. The children are fascinated at observing the seasonal changes through the plants as well as having the opportunity to contribute to the garden through class projects, science lessons and gardening club. We have a peaceful spiritual corner that was suggested by school council a few years ago and allows the children to have a peaceful area to reflect. 
Garden club recently planted Mrs Marshall's tree in the school grounds, as well as snowdrops that we will be able to enjoy next year.