In the late 1990’s the church minister would deliver school assemblies. A children’s worker was appointed to the church staff team and wondered what else the church could be doing to support the school. She spoke to the Head Teacher, offering to do some classroom work. This offer was taken up, and she became a regular face in the school. She then grew links with another local primary through contact with a school secretary.

The Head Teacher had a link with a chaplain who took assemblies. A new minister started at the local church, and offered to help at the school. Schools are often at the heart of a community, and since a church can be another key place in the community it is helpful when the church is part of the bigger picture.

Some volunteers decided to meet as a ‘Pray for Schools’ group to pray for their local primary schools. People attended from different churches and a real sense of community developed.

The group wrote to local Head Teachers asking “What can we pray for?” Not all responded, but some did. Teachers started to get in touch to ask for prayer for particular situations or children (but without naming which child!), and the group heard back about prayers that had been answered.

In 2006, a local Church of Scotland minister had the idea of having a dedicated youth worker based in the local secondary school. As he shared the idea with other ministers in the area, more people caught the vision, and eight of the churches agreed to form a partnership and work together. They approached SU Scotland and discovered that their proposal would be an ideal fit with the Associate Worker Scheme. SU Scotland provides training, payroll admin, line management and a network of workers as their part of the partnership with the local churches. The local secondary school was supportive of the initiative, and offered the churches a desk for the worker in the school; and in 2010, the first worker was appointed. Other churches have since become aware of the project, and are supporting in different ways. The worker is the chair of the school’s chaplaincy team, which has representatives of all eight churches on it.

Around 25 years ago, the Baptist minister approached the Church of Scotland chaplain about taking an assembly, which was subsequently agreed with the Head Teacher. The assembly was a success and he was invited to come back and take other assemblies. He also became involved as a parent helper, and in an after school computer club. Through being a consistent presence in the school, the minister was able to build up trust and relationships, and was invited to take on the formal role of chaplain after the previous chaplain moved on.

Initially the school chaplain was allowed in for some fairly traditional chaplaincy; the occasional assembly, and end of term services around Christmas and Easter. Some volunteers ran SU groups in the primary school. The church’s youth worker got involved where he could, helping in assemblies and SU groups, and starting a secondary SU group. Over eighteen months he became known to the staff and because of the trust that was established, he was able to develop many activities.