We are a Church School

Bodsham School is closely associated with the  nearby village churches that make up the newly coined term for this group of Churches; ‘The Parish Upon the Hills’. These include St Bartholemew’s in Waltham, St Mary’s in Hastingleigh and St James The Great in Elmsted.            

Our roots are firmly planted in the Church of England and the school has Voluntary Controlled status.  We consider it reasonable to assume that parents who send their children here are sympathetic to the Christian character of the school.  We regularly attend our churches for worship for special festivals such as Harvest, Christmas, and Easter and Ascension. . The Governors are responsible for the running of the school and regularly meet to discuss the development of the school.

Although Bodsham School is Voluntary Controlled, its governance is through the Federation.

• Our daily act of worship
• Class and school displays
• In reflection corners
• In our spiritual garden
• In our wide ranging acts of charitable giving
• In our positive interactions with and between all members of the school and local community
• In our focus on skills for learning and in particular resilience and perseverance.

The pupils demonstrate a huge compassion for those less fortunate than themselves and have raised considerable sums over the past few years for local, national and international charities.  Many of the events have been organised by the pupils themselves including a recent after school sale of home made goodies for the Lord Whisky Animal Sanctuary.  They have also been involved in Blue Peter fund raising, Red Nose Day and Children in Need to name but a few.

CHRISTIAN FESTIVALS

We celebrate Christian Festivals each year including:

HARVEST

Our Harvest Festival service is held yearly at Elmsted Church and parents are welcome to attend. We invite the children to bring gifts that will be presented and blessed during the service and donated to local foodbanks.

CHRISTMAS

The children lead this act of worship in church. Nearly all families join their children for this service.

LENT

We often mark Lent with some act of self-sacrifice. Activities have included Lent Boxes, collecting coins for WaterAid for example.

EASTER

Easter is always celebrated at Bodsham School culminating with an end of term service at church led by the children.

Ascension Day 2021

Thursday 13th  May was our first Ascension Day after Covid struck and to mark that important date in the church calendar we were able to have our first whole school assembly since last March 2020. Fittingly we all gathered outside under the Bodsham tree in our bubbles, at a safe distance. We were joined by our very own Rev Lorraine who had arranged for it to stop raining minutes before the worship began. It was a truly joyful experience seeing all the children together again.