PUPILS at St John’s School in Warminster spent a whole day exploring the Pentecost story through drama, dance, poetry, art, cookery and quiet reflection on Thursday, May 26

The day was planned and run by the staff and a team of nine people from St John’s church. It started with a Collective Worship, led by St John’s Church ‘Open The Book’ team, in which the children were introduced to the story.

School governor Sheelagh Wurr, who organised the day, said: “The pupils really got into the theme and we could see from the way were acting and their responses that they really understood it.

“They were thoroughly absorbed throughout the day and also enjoyed not having to go to lessons for a day.

“Pupils had the opportunity to work in mixed age groups throughout the day and it was good to see how the older members were ready to help the younger ones.”

The drama group expressed the story through ‘freeze framing’ in which they ‘froze’ at key points in the story and answered questions from other pupils in the manner of a character from the story.

Two stations were set up in St John’s Church where children explored words from the story written on dove templates and hung them on a specially made Pentecost tree and sat around the altar for reflection at the other.

Pupils explored the story in dance and made short video clips of their work and in one workshop groups of pupils created stained glass cookies by crushing boiled sweets, melting them and pouring the melted mixture into shapes cut out of dough.

At the end of the day, the whole school gathered in the hall to show the parents the work produced during the day with a ‘Pentecost Picture’ which every pupil at the school had contributed to.