Prayer Page | The Holme Church of England School

Our School Prayer

This is our school
Let peace dwell here
Let the rooms be full of contentment
Let love abide here
Love of one another
Love of mankind
Love of life itself

And love of God
Let us remember
That as many hands build a house
So many hearts make a school
Amen

Prayer at The Holme

Prayer is an important part of our daily lives at The Holme. We believe we can talk to God at any time - both in formal collective acts of worship, but also as part of private, quiet reflection. Prayer changes things, internally and externally and we recognise and teach the value of peaceful reflection and thinking and talking about spiritual matters. Times are built into the school day where children and staff are invited to share in prayer, for example before lunch and at the end of day. We also have moments of quiet reflection - we 'pause to be'.

An aspect of our school spiritual life that has grown in importance both to staff and pupils are our prayer spaces. These are set up by the school worship council. Sometimes a prayer space will pop up in school in response to something in the local, national or world news. For example when Queen Elizabeth passed away, a pop up prayer space was created as a focus for our school community to say thank you and to reflect on keeping promises. When the war in Ukraine began, the pupils asked for a prayer space at which they could pray for the people of Ukraine.

We usually have regular prayer spaces linked to Christian festivals including Harvest, Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. One of the most poignant times of year for our prayer spaces is Remembrance and we use the prayer space at this time to help pupils pray for veterans, pray for war-torn areas of the world and on a personal level to think deeply about grief.

In the summer term we spend a couple of days with multiple prayer stations to visit. This can be in the school building, or in the grounds, but has also been hosted at All Saints Parish Church, where their own prayer team were able to join us. Our Year 6 pupils attend a special leavers service at Guildford Cathedral during which they participate in a number of prayer stations to help them think about change and transition.