Hope

Hope

Our Christian value of HOPE is an intrinsic part of all aspects of school life for staff and children alike.  At Selwood we seek to provide children with high quality education rooted in Christianity that will support them throughout their lives enabling them to ‘Live Life in all its fullness’ John 10:10

Each core Christian value is represented to the children in a range of ways e.g. a dictionary definition, the reason why we have chosen that value, which bible story it links to, children’s voice showing what that value means to them and through art work.

Our behaviour system of rewarding positive behaviour with achievement points is linked to the 4 core Christian values.  Reasons why pupils can earn achievement points is outlined in the table below.  

 

Wisdom	Community	Joy	Hope
Problem solving	Taking part with a positive attitude	Enthusiasm	Ambition
Questioning	Politeness	Resilience	Optimism
Seeking help	Empathy	Self-Belief	Positivity
Listening	Respect for others	Creativity	Risk Taking
Leadership	Supporting others	Pride in achievement/work	Learning from failure and completing tasks.
Self Control	Praising others	Love of learning	Independent work

 

We use the bible story ‘Jesus heals a paralysed man’ (Mark 2:  1 - 12).  The story appears in the New Testament, and models how anything is possible. We use this story to show our pupils that their opportunities and possibilities are unlimited and with commitment and motivation they can achieve anything in life.

A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. Some men came, bringing to him a paralysed man, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through, and then lowered the mat the man was lying on.  When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralysed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
Now, some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins, but God alone?”

Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to this paralysed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’?  But I want you to know that the ‘Son of Man’ has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”
 

Here is a prayer written by our pupils on our core Christian value; Hope.

Dear Heavenly Father,

We thank you for this day.

Let us have hope every day.

Thank you for giving us hope when we feel worried, when we are having a hard time and when we are sad or worried about what is ahead.

Thank you that even the smallest seed of hope can grow into a big, tall tree.

Please help us when we find it hard to be hopeful so we can offer hope to others.

Amen