Working together: Creation Care workshops for schools & churches
The Creation Care Workshops for Schools project began when Clare Green, the diocese’s Schools’ Creation Care Officer, was asked at a Creation Care Gathering how churches could best engage with their local schools in the area of creation care.
Many churches have wonderful, exciting and sometimes wild green spaces where wildlife abounds and some of the Creation Care Champions were keen to share their spaces with schools that often sit close to their churches.
One of the first questions Clare was asked was whether she only worked with C of E Schools, and although these are at the heart of her work, Clare knew that most of them have natural and strong links with their local churches. It felt like the right things to try and build bridges between non-faith schools and local Christian communities.
Clare said: “I wanted to devise a programme that would be simple for churches to administer and run, while providing for schools a strong resource that would cover and build on the Cornwall RE Syllabus which all Cornish schools are expected to follow. It would aim to welcome children and staff into our sacred spaces and give them a good understanding of how churches care for God’s creation as well as cover statutory learning objectives.
“From a church point of view, the scheme needed to be clear enough to run with a minimum number of volunteers, a low budget and adaptable for a variety of settings.”
Clare’s scheme was piloted during June and July 2024 at Illogan Church, Chacewater Church, All Saints Highertown and by Trinity Church, Truro, who took the workshops into their local schools. Over 12 workshops took place with over seven schools engaged (all non church schools). Roughly 350 children participated, a number of whom visited their local church for the first time.
