Scottish actor and director David Hayman this week marked the opening of a new mural created by a group of young people at St Marks Church in Drumchapel. From the church’s perspective, involvement in the project helped give young people a meaningful connection with the church and provided the opportunity to build relationships with young people who might not otherwise cross the threshold.

Café Philosophie is a new initiative aimed at Secondary pupils organised by Fountainhall Church in association with Queen’s Cross and Harlaw Community Council and Ashley/Broomhill Community Council. Meeting once or twice per month at Fountainhall at the Cross, Café Philosophie offers an opportunity for S5 and S6 pupils from local schools to learn from people prominent in their field of expertise.

Since we began in 2012, we’ve learned there’s no one size fits all approach to schools work, and over the years we have been inspired by the many creative ways churches across the country have done just that. We know that it can be daunting knowing where to begin, and tempting to look at other examples of what churches are doing and think ‘we couldn’t do that’. But as we hear about the different ways churches are supporting their local schools,  I’m continually struck by the power of offering what we do have.

On Sunday (26th November), Karen Stangoe was formally welcomed and inducted as the latest SU Scotland Regional Worker for Lanarkshire in a well-attended meeting at Park Church (UF) in Uddingston. Karen had previously served that church as their Children and Families Worker. She brings great experience to her role with SU across North and South Lanarkshire. Together, these two administrative regions comprise Scotland’s largest local authority area with over 300 schools. Karen will not be short of work!

A Dundee church is pioneering a new type of children's choir that channels pop, rock, soul, R‘n'B and gospel music.

With 8 primary schools and 7 churches partnering together, young people have been meeting weekly at Downfield Mains Church every Sunday afternoon to sing catchy faith fuelled contemporary songs that bring them closer to Jesus and channel "pure joy".

King’s Church recently welcomed pupils from Culloden Academy to their Factory Coffee House as part of a barista training course. Pupils spent the week learning how to make the coffee shop’s signature drinks menu and on the final Friday afternoon of the course the team of young people were tasked with taking over the running of the coffee shop.

Aileen Christie, Outreach Worker at St Serf’s Lochgelly Benarty, shares how delivering the Bible Alive programme has strengthened her relationship with her local school communities and helped developed new areas of work from reading grannies to community lunches

Over the last few weeks of term time 260 pupils and staff from both Loudoun-Montgomery Primary School and Glebe Primary School journeyed round Fullarton Connexions’ forest trail, ‘Emmaus Maze’. The maze invites children to step into the Emmaus journey and to see the difference Jesus made and continues to make in our lives.

As well as encouraging pupils to take the lead, the project helped school staff understand pupils priorities and hear the types of activities they were most interested in directly. The project gave pupils a voice and encouraged their active participation. It encouraged creative thinking, introduced democracy, promoted team work and provided the opportunity to learn simple budgeting

As a school chaplain the project was an excellent way of building relationships with children ahead of their move to high school and a great way of supporting the wider work of the school. It’s a fairly easy project to manage and run, and pupils had a great time taking part.