News from our Voluntary & Part-Time Chaplains
Revd David Beazley
Steyning Grammar School
I’m grateful for the chance to update our SEBA community on behalf of the chaplaincy team at Steyning Grammar School, a co-educational state comprehensive school, part of the Bohunt multi-academy trust. SGS is the largest Comprehensive school in SE England, and the largest Church of England School in the country.
Revd Neill Stannard, vicar of Beeding, Bramber and Botolphs, is part-time Chaplain at the school, and leads a team of around six volunteers. The Chaplaincy role is considerable, with around 2,450 students and over 300 staff (not all teachers) on four sites. The challenges are the same as for any secondary school in these days, finding opportunities - and openness - to minister in a pressured and not always conducive, receptive or sympathetic environment. In a
community of such size there are also inevitable pastoral crises, with bereavements or traumatic events.
Students and staff are drawn from a huge area of West Sussex centred on Steyning, with many coming in on coaches. This makes for a long day for many youngsters and a ‘compressing’ effect on the school timetable, which particularly affects collective worship opportunities, and lunchtime and after school times, when clubs and activities like Christian groups can meet.
My own small Chaplaincy role is to lead a group in one of the two lower schools (years 7 and 8), a role I share with one of the sisters from the Towers Convent Community, formerly a Catholic girls’ school, whose buildings are now one of the SGS sites.
The little Christian Union provides a lunch-time ‘quiet place’ where we can teach and share and listen and pray with a small group. Timetable pressures and other constraints reduce the time to less than half an hour, with children coming and going within that time. So a consistent programme is hard to follow.
Nevertheless we have a faithful few and a more numerous ‘turnover’, hardly any of whom come from a Christian or Church background. Our meetings usually involve some Bible-based content, some ‘Q & A’, and we always end with prayer for the children and the school. There have been some lovely sessions and some really interested and engaging youngsters, as well as some behaviour struggles.
Mine is, of course, only one small part of the enormous tasks of Chaplaincy within the school. I also volunteer as an invigilator, and have shared in a weekly ‘Downs Day’ of outdoor learning with Year 7 classes, all of which help to build relationships and hopefully demonstrate some links with the Christian ethos of the school.
As with any school today the needs are great and the secular attitudes and ‘God-averse’ culture in which many of the children are grounded, make for an uphill task. Nevertheless there are frequent evidences of the value of the Chaplaincy and the appreciation children feel for the presence and input of God’s people, including Christians amongst pupils and staff.
I would continue ask for prayer for youngsters to have the curiosity -and the courage- to engage with Christian themes, and for our Chaplaincy team, particularly Neill Stannard as the leader. For my own part I pray that I may bring ideas that will be engaging and a reflection of Christ that will be effective. I am sure the same requests would come from others involved in this work.
Thankyou! God bless,
David
PS For further information and prayer topics, please see the Chaplaincy link on the school’s website...
https://www.sgs.uk.net/about/christian-values/christian-ethos-and-chaplaincy/