The Revd Erica Wilding shares about the Bible Festival held at their local primary school in Uxbridge.
The clergy team of the Uxbridge Parish had great fun supporting the second Bible Festival held at St Andrew’s Church of England Primary School last month. As part of the Festival, each class focused on a particular biblical character and throughout the week enjoyed clergy presentations, Godly Play and stories read to them from Mystery Readers from the Parish. These helped the children to fully focus on a range of biblical characters including Jonah, Noah, Moses, Joseph, Hannah and Samuel, Daniel, Ruth and Paul and were able to respond to the stories through drama, writing, reading and craft activities.
The idea of hosting a Bible Festival came from Mrs Frankie Allen, School RE and Collective Worship Lead last year and because it took place during lockdown, involved pre-recorded story telling from a wide range of parishioners who were filmed from their gardens or from their doorsteps, recounting their favourite Bible story. It was so popular with the parish that over 20 video clips were produced. There were also Zoom presentations from clergy, representatives from other churches and our Youth Worker, James Wood.
This year, we were able to go into the school and interact with the children face to face which was a great blessing.