Friday prayer30 September 2021 (by admin) |
Dear parents and carers,
One of our school development priorities this year is to reflect the diverse community that we serve in school. One of the ways that we can do this is through our collective worship each day. We have traditionally held events at All Saints Church each term (pre-COVID) and hold termly assemblies led by a Christian organisation called ‘Open the Book’ on a Tuesday.
We currently have 66 Muslim children in the school (16% of our cohort). After discussion with our Muslim community it has come to our attention that it is tradition for children to attend a mosque every Friday for prayer on top of praying five times a day. At present, this is not an option for children attending the school. One of the ways we could do this is to offer this as part of our collective worship arrangements in school.
For that reason, we are going to trial a Friday prayer session in the school, alongside our regular collective worship. We will be inviting children from the Islamic faith to join a prayer session once a week, in a spare room, as the rest of the school holds a moment of reflection.
The session will last for approximately fifteen minutes on a Friday afternoon. Initially this will be led by one of our Year 6 pupils but we will also be inviting Islamic leaders lead the sessions in the future. The session will be overseen by a member of staff and we will also look at ways that the whole school can participate in the speech part of the session using Zoom.
Muslim pupils would need to bring in their own prayer mat for the session. This will need to be cleaned and placed in a plastic bag. The bag or mat must be named. The mat will be stored in the pupil’s locker throughout the day and will be brought home at the end of the day.
If you would like your child to attend the prayer session as part of their religious observance, please complete the form following the link:
https://forms.gle/Si9KTdWvqoqB5Do38
The first session will take place tomorrow afternoon.
If you have any queries about the session, please contact the office: admin@fairfields.hants.sch.uk
Kind regards
Miss Kelly Dillon
Headteacher
