Faith & Belief Forum
Newton Church of England Primary and Nursery school have been part of the “Interfaith and Belief Forum” since 2017. Essentially, this is an organisation that has worked tirelessly for over 20 years to build good relations between people of all faiths and beliefs, and to create a society where difference is celebrated.
The Charity creates safe spaces in schools where people can engage with questions of belief and identity and meet people with different beliefs from themselves.
Formally known as Three Faiths Forum, Newton Regis school have formed good relationships with pupils from Acocks Green Primary School and Olive School – both based in Birmingham. Prior to the pandemic, this entailed three school visits per year, where pupils had the opportunity to engage in activities with other children from different faiths, learning about cultures, ways of life and how we are both similar and different.
In April 2023, Y3 pupils linked with other Y3 pupils from Olive school and Austrey School – participating in activities via zoom. As primarily an Islamic school, we learnt about Ramadan from children with first-hand experiences of this sacred time for Muslims. We learnt about how Muslim children manage fasting during the busy school day and why it is important to their faith. We learnt that we shared many similarities from liking the same sports, video games, celebrities and TV programmes.
“I learned that they can’t eat between sunrise and sunset – I think between 5am and 8pm”
“When fasting is over, they have a big feast”
“During the day, they stop and pray”
On Monday 15th January 2024 year 3/4 at both Austrey and Newton had a visit from Olive School. Over the course of the morning we engaged in identity activities from looking at our names to designing our backpack- physical traits on the outside and our interests/ characteristics on the inside. We found out that although our lives were different we had lots of similarities . We shared lunch and break with our new friends.
“I enjoyed the visit because I made lots of new friends that I hadn’t met before” Elsie
“We played football with the children from Olive School and they showed me lots of new tricks!” Arlo
“It was really interesting to learn about their religion and when they pray” Dougie
The children had a super time with Olive School on our first Linking Day of the academic year on Wednesday 4th December 2024 at both Newton and Austrey Schools. The children paired up and shared information about their names and their significance, their beliefs and celebrations they enjoyed. They also enjoyed creating a ‘backpack’ which showed what they were like on the outside (hair colour, gender etc) and what they were like on the inside (favourite food, hobbies etc). We look forward to being able to link up again in the Spring Term for Day 2! Well done to everyone involved and huge thanks to all staff for their support on the day.
Owls and King Eider spent a busy fun-filled day with Olive School in Birmingham on Wednesday 2nd April. The Year 3 children and staff from classes Ibn Saad and Ibn Ali welcomed us and we joined in with activities linked to the theme of Diversity. The children enjoyed creating a wool web of similar likes, a flower with petals of similar interests/backgrounds and designed a community space where everyone could feel welcome and gather together. Both Austrey and Newton children were praised for their behaviour and lots of new friends were made!
Amelie: “It’s a once in a lifetime experience”
Darcie: “We are lucky that we went there as it’s the most extraordinary place I’ve ever been to”
Chester: “I made some really good friends”
Abel: “It was massive and there were lots of things to look at”
Jacob: “It was an amazing thing to see”