ST OSWALD'S CE PRIMARY SCHOOL CHESTER

We work closely with two other schools, Witton Church Walk CE Primary School, Tarporley CE Primary School to organise an annual Ethos Conference for schools in Cheshire West and Chester. The first Ethos conference took place in 2017 at Witton Church Walk with subsequent conferences at St Oswald's in 2018 and then Tarporley in 2019 when over 120 children from 18 different schools came and took part. Sadly the 2020 Ethos conference had to be cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  The 2021 and 2022 Ethos conferences were done as virtual events to ensure they could go ahead. Moving forward we are sticking with the Virtual Ethos Conference format as it allows many more children to take part. 

The Virtual Ethos Conference 2023 was another big success. Well over 20 schools attended once again with some schools incluyding the whole school in the activities. This year the theme was 'God's Biggest Story'. You can see lots of the work that was done on the day on the Conference padlet page.

VIRTUAL ETHOS CONFERENCE 2023

This is some of the feedback we received from schools taking part. 

"The amount or lack of preplanning involved - everything was thought of and there were lovely resources to inspire you."

"Loved the collaborative approach and for a small school it was of great value being virtually with other church schools. The workshop ideas given on the Padlet were great and relaxed feel so you could tweak things and make it your own. Nice to start and end the day with Worship."

"The whole day was a success. Even catered for other faiths in my class."

"We really enjoyed it and found it to be a very special day and it was enjoyed by all of our class."

"The children enjoyed the zoom call and seeing other schools. They loved the worship music. We like that all the activities allowed the children to be creative as well as reflective. The children loved the day, there was a lot of excited discussion at lunchtime about the the Bible stories and their thoughts. The reflections the children came up with were really thoughtful."

"We really enjoyed the welcome and worship - it helped our children see that we are part of a much larger family. The choice of activities to support our spiritual development during the day was good as we could miss out parts we felt had been explored through RE."

"The children enjoyed a full day of looking at the Biggest Story concepts and being off normal timetable. They grew in understanding of these key concepts. They had fun doing a range of creative activities."

"It was lovely how everything was on there including the pre-recorded song, Worship, Biggest Story so you could do prep prior to the day. Great to see other school's work and be able to comment / like it."

"The children loved seeing the comments they received and the work of other schools."

"Lovely activities! Thank you for all the hard work that was put into this. My students found it easy to use and planned good sessions from the starting points given, showing it was well explained."

This was a really great event and was attended by well over 20 schools and approximately 600 children online. You can see all the activities and video used on the day on the padlet page below as well as a slideshow to some of the work that was done on the day. Thanks to Bishop Mark for attending. 

VIRTUAL ETHOS CONFERENCE 2022

This years virtual ethos conference was fantastic event - all held online. Check out this padlet page to see ALL the work that was done on the day. 

VIRTUAL ETHOS CONFERENCE