Time for Reflection
Everyone needs time and space to reflect. At Currie Community High School we allow pupils and staff this time with our Time for Reflection programme of assemblies and other opportunities.
We are a school that embraces a diversity of belief in our pupils and staff. There are those with strong religious faith and those with none. Our Time for Reflection programme aims to reflect this diversity and recognise the religious and cultural backgrounds of our school community.
Time for Reflection assemblies are planned by pupils in conjunction with staff and pupils. The programme allows pupils time and space to ponder some big ideas and questions. For example, in our series of assemblies there was a session called “Looking Forward”. A number of different pupils and staff shared with S3 and S4 pupils what they were looking forward to over the course of the next year. One senior pupil was looking forward to participating in the Lessons From Auschwitz programme, another to their annual SU camp. A junior pupil was looking forward to their next summer holiday whilst a member of staff was trying to reduce his golf handicap.
Other assemblies and opportunities for reflection focused on Interfaith Remembrance, a lecture from Denis Goldberg who was imprisoned alongside Nelson Mandela in South Africa, Christmas, Holocaust Memorial Day, Easter, and charitable efforts including the Youth Philanthropy Initiative. At the end of the year we celebrated achievements that are both collective and personal when we rounded things off with an assembly called “Looking Back”.
Time for Reflection & Assemblies Programme
Chaplaincy Team
The school’s chaplaincy team are Easter Smart and Jim Dewar, ministers of the Church of Scotland churches in Currie and Juniper Green.
The chaplaincy team is available to the school, pupils and staff, as part of an In-School counselling service, usually described as “listening ear”.
It is introduced to pupils on the basis that there are all kinds of things that might bother them, for which they might want someone to talk to. They are not members of staff, but people who visit the school, able and willing to listen in a concerned but slightly disconnected way. They listen to pupils talk through whatever it is that bothers them, either issues about school or about life more widely, and offer help and support as they deal with these issues.
The team might offer some advice which they can take or leave; all of this is completely confidential. There is nothing religious in these sesssions and they are not out to convert anyone to their view of life and the world.
They have a private room in the school located so that no-one sees what is going on. Sessions typically last up to 30 minutes and one of the team will be in school every week. Pupils can arrange to meet a member of the chaplaincy team through the Pupil Support staff.
The chaplaincy team also contribute to a programme of assemblies referred to as ‘time for reflection’.
Click here for more information about ‘Time for Reflection.
