Prayer Spaces in Schools May 2017 Newsletter

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04/06/2017 Stories
Dear Friends,

Good News… the sun is shining! Although this brief burst of sunshine has brought many of us in the UK to a slightly burnt standstill. (We’re not great at handling the heat… or the cold for that matter.)

Even more Good News… there have already been more than 550 prayer spaces in schools during this academic year! And there were more than 150 prayer spaces in June and July last year, so we’re anticipating a very busy end to the term, supporting, praying for, and connecting with those running prayer spaces all over the world during these next few (hopefully warm) weeks.
Research Stage Two
Professor Julian Stern from York St John University and his team have received hundreds of completed research questionnaires, and they are already beginning to analyse the data. In the meantime, the second, qualitative phase of the research project has begun. The Professor, and his co-researcher Rachael Shillitoe, will be visiting a few representative schools over the next few weeks to interview students and staff about their experiences of prayer spaces.

The first interview-visit took place last week and one of the teachers emailed to say; “It all went well today. It was great for me to hear their feedback, and I got quite emotional at one point!” The research findings will be presented publicly for the first time at our Day Conferences in September. Talking of which…
Prayer Spaces in Schools, Day Conferences 2017
The tickets are now available… HERE! We’d love for you to join us in LONDON on Saturday 23rd September or YORK on Saturday 30th September, on the tenth anniversary of the very first prayer space, for what we think will be our best-ever Day Conferences.

These days will include; a keynote summary presentation of the research project from Professor Julian Stern and Rachael Shillitoe, a bunch of great workshops and hosted conversations, latest news and stories from prayer spaces around the world, time for networking and exchanging new prayer activity ideas, and lots more. To find out more please visit our webpage. We’d love to see you there.
Prayer Activities
A couple of people recently asked if we had any new prayer activities ‘up our sleeves’… and it turns out that we did! You may have seen the six new activities that we posted last week, but if not, here are the links; Autumn Leaves, Bought and Sold, Dream Clouds, Masks … Still to come we have Opportunity Keys and Under My Umbrella (and no, Rihanna’s catchy song has nothing to do with it). If you’ve adapted or improved any of our existing prayer activities, or if you’ve created any new ones that have worked well, please send us the instructions and a couple of photos so that we can share them with others. We’re always on the lookout for great new prayer activities.

Peace be with you,

Tandia Hughes
Prayer Spaces in Schools team