Due to the success of the Next Generation Conference in October 2011, the Youth and Children’s Advisers from the Dioceses of Bristol and Bath & Wells are teaming up to tour both dioceses in 2012 with free training for children and youth leaders, church leaders, teachers and headteachers.

This term's newsletter from Director Jackie Waters-Dewhurst features updates on Academies, the Resource Centre, training courses and prayer for schools.

You can download it from the link below.

From the National Society: http://www.worshipworkshop.org.uk/

This website gives you 100 child friendly Christian songs/hymns – liturgy , readings and planning tools.

This worship idea is a reflection based on Psalm 46 - "Be still and know that I am God."

It was first presented at the Next Generation conference in October 2011. You can use this video file or Powerpoint presentation to try it yourself.

St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School have launched a new website which includes a compelling summary and presentation about the role of faith and worship in their school life.

If you would like to create a similar video slideshow for your website or presentation to an audience, there are free and low cost tools for this at animoto.com

The Autumn newsletter for schools contains creative ideas for harvest celebrations, articles on RE and resources, and lots of inspirational quotes and prayers.

"Values For Life" is a structure for school assemblies with weekly themes and resources. Chris Green from Horfield Church of England Primary School has produced a list of song suggestions to go with the themes - you can download it from the link below.

Thanks to Mary Hawes for spotting this gem of a blog entry by Carolyn C. Brown… you can see the original here.

The final Harry Potter movie comes out the middle of July. There will be lots of hype – mild understatement! Many older children and Potter fans of all ages who have already read the books and seen the other movies will be rereading and reviewing them looking forward to this final installment. Some will attend the movie dressed in costume. In short, it is a big deal.

An inclusive All-age Easter talk involving children and young people...

• Buy some plastic Easter Eggs - the kind that open so that you can put things inside. Easily available from PoundShops.
• Read the Holy Week/Easter story with the children/young people. Ask them what they want to say about it to the congregation.
• Then ask them what objects/symbols might help them say/show their ideas.
• Source or make these with the children and put one inside each egg. (Remember which is inside each colour and the order you want them to appear.) Decide together what needs to be said about the object/symbol.
• On Easter morning, have less confident children opening the eggs and showing the object/symbol and the more confident ones saying something about it. If the church is large, you might want to substitute boxes for the eggs so that the objects can be larger!
• Finish by having all the children saying, 'He is Risen' - and the congregation responding 'Alleluia'. (You could do this two or three times getting louder each time.)

These two Powerpoints present the Lord's Prayer, one traditional and the other a modern twist of Jesus’s words in Luke 11:1-4. A great visual tool for brightening up all-age worship or concluding an assembly in school.