Gordon McBirnie has worked for Craiglockhart Parish Church for a number of years, and during his time has witnessed many changes and challenges in the way that the church seeks to serve their local schools. It’s very easy to get discouraged when it seems like our current work isn’t going in the direction we were planning or hoping for. When SU groups are more difficult and there seems to be little that is actually growing, it could make sense to stop with your involvement or leadership in an area of your school. But maybe it’s important we stick around in the difficult times as well as the good times?

Over 30 years ago Steve Younger was appointed School Chaplain at Auchinraith Primary, and since then relationships have been built and opportunities given, so that he is now greeted as a friend of the school. Three decades is a long time to stay engaged and current with any school these days, especially with the rate that staff teams alter. So what are the things that have allowed Steve to stay in this position as an adopted member of the staff team?

We at SYLS set ourselves the task of finding out if Scottish churches had been making use of SYLS, and if so how had they found it. A huge bit of research was undertaken to find some answers. 332 online surveys and 25 in-depth phone interviews later we had some answers to our wonderings! Interested what the research and interviews highlighted?

When Nicole Baker Fulgham founder and president of The American Expectations Project, a non-profit organisation that seeks to close the academic achievement gap in public schools, met one of her fellow faith-based public school advocates for coffee, he recounted a conversation he had with a friend who is a long-time elementary school principal in the Bronx.

Avonbridge United Reformed Church wished to develop a working partnership with the local primary school. This was worked out in a number of areas: elders have been involved in cookery classes for the children; some pupils helped create a raised garden at the front of the church building. The children also designed and painted a wonderful ‘mural’ style painting depicting the life of Jesus in four panels with words summing up what the story of Jesus means to them.

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.