Part of my role for the church here is to develop our partnerships with local schools and I often go in to primary and secondary schools to take assemblies or lessons around particular themes. We have also recently been running a Youth Alpha course at the local Academy (where our church meets on Sunday mornings).

Yesterday, I attended a symposium on the future of Christian schools work at the House of Commons. There were about 60 people there from various schools, churches, and christian agencies, and it was supported by a number of MP’s.

The morning was hosted by schoolswork.co.uk and Chapel St, a change and regeneration agency working with communities. The purpose of the meeting was to look at the wider role of spirituality in education and discuss the opportunities for Christians in engaging with this.

There were keynotes from Chris Curtis (of LCET), Jessica Lee MP for Erewash, and Geraldine Davies (Head of the School of Education at St Mary’s University College, Twickenham). All of these prompted many questions and much dialogue was generated. It is hoped the discussions will start to form some sort of national agenda for spirituality.

Personally, I found it a really interesting event and I picked up on a couple of key points; the need to start a debate with government on a definition and context for spirituality in schools, and the idea of building a strong rationale or framework for Christians working in schools to strengthen what they offer the curriculum.

I could say a lot more on the subject, but I’m keen to see what develops from the event.