St Mary’s Church, Bury St Edmunds, use their £1000 grant to fund their “Christmas through the Keyhole” project.
“Christmas through the Keyhole” is an interactive trail telling the Christmas story - starting in the present day, then visiting Mary’s home, the shepherds’ field, the Magis’ observatory, Joseph’s workshop, and ending up in the Bethlehem stable. At each zone, children were invited to use all their senses to find out more about the characters in the story and why they were not at home but had gone to Bethlehem. By the time the children reached Bethlehem, they knew how each one had become involved in the amazing story.
There were three 60-70 minute tours allocated a day for up to 60 schoolchildren per tour, during four days in early December. Fifteen year groups visited, which encompassed a total of 620 children from 6 schools with a large number of accompanying teachers and school support staff. The tour opened again for smaller family groups on Saturday, and the sets were also used for a visit by locals with learning disabilities and their carers.
The grant enabled the church to purchase good quality props, backdrops and other materials to create the sets and offer an interactive experience that was of a high standard for the pupils and other visitors.
Feedback of the event from staff, governors, helpers and children had been really positive and many have expressed interest in attending future events. For some of the youngest children, this was their first experience of being in a church building and of hearing the Biblical Christmas story told by Christians; for others it enabled them to demonstrate what they had been learning in RE and enhanced their understanding of what the story means to Christians.
Feedback from schools had also been overwhelmingly positive. An example from one school said: “a massive thank you from KS1 for such a wonderful experience. It was immersive, exciting, educational and inspirational (for us as staff) and so much fun”.
The church were able to engage 21 members of the congregation, and two members from neighbouring churches, to help with the project.
The whole venture had enabled the church to further their growing links with local Primary schools, who are already encouraging them to develop more opportunities to support the school curriculum (RE, History and English in particular) and to offer support with Collective Worship.
