Figure 1.--.
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Figure 1.--. |
Sunday programs varied from school to school. Most prep schools have some religious affliliation. Thus the principal activity in the morning is church. The schools attend church as a group at a local church of the appropriate denomination. Some schools have their own chapels. As boarding has changed over time, fewer prep schools now have their own chapel services. With the increasing number of day boys there are just not enough boarders in many small schools to justify this. They mostly go to a local church. Provision is made for the children with special religious needs, primarily Catholic children at Protestant usually Anglican schools. Often after breakfast the children write a letter home and then march together to school in their dress uniforms. After lunch there the children normally have free time. Sunday afternoon is normally run similarly to Saturday afternoon. There may be games matches with other schools. The children are free to play games are engage in various favorite activities. Here the season and weather are a factir. There may be an outing of some time organized for interested children. The children on excheats return in the evening.
Now that Belmont has so many day boys and weekly boarders, the Sunday Chapel service hAs become A thing of the pAst, the full boarders attending the services in Holmbury St. Mary Church each week. The new rector, Mr. Vernon White, not onlly welcomes them but he can sing! (Net year I shall have the pleasure of being the 'Full time' organist there, an will look after the Church choir). Now we have a first service here once a term on a Saturday so that all the boys have some experience of a shortened Mattins and some of the formal ritual of hurch of England worship. The choir lead the singing (of course) and usually have some special anthem ready on these occasions
C.S. The Aquileon, Belmont School, Feldemore, 1986-87
We are grateful to the Vicar of Westbury, the Rev. Julian Hartford, for allowing us to use the Church on Sunday mornings. On the first Sunday in each month we now share in the Parish Communion Service led by the Beachborough and Parish Choirs. The Series II Order of Service is used and the school is free to leave before the Prayer of Consecration. On the following Sunday in each month the Parish share in the Beachborough Service of Matins. On each Sundays the School service is held in the Church in the morning and in the Library on some Sunday evenings. Special Services have been held to mark Rememberance Sunday, the Harvest Festival, with the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at the end of the Christms Term. and the Service of the Cross of Christ at the end of the Easter Term. Each morning a short service is held in the School Library, where the newly restored organ plays an important part in the singing. The choir has made an invaluable contribution to the worship of the school in all these services.
MC, The School Record Beachborough School, September 1979.
Birtles Church is a very small church down a little country lane in Alderley Edge. The church is so small it does not have a car-park, so people park along the little lane against the hedges. All the hedges area bit overgrown, and the grass along the lane has a lot of nettles growing along it.
You can tell it is a country lane because of the noise made by the cows on the other side of the hedge, The small patch up to the church is gravel, like a lot of churches now. There are gates to the church, made of iron. The vicar is always in front of the church, ready to shake your hand and wish everyone a good and happy morning, with his happy face. You can tell he especially likes children because he always talks about them in the services, and he does a Christmas and Easter play with them every year.
We walk through the church door and take our seats. Then we look around to see if there is anyone we know. The sears are a lovely red velvet, unlike a lot of other churches, and it is warm inside.
With a large stained-glass window depicting someone carrying a book, there are other little stained-glass windows to make it look very bright and cheerful. On a board on the wall there are numbers telling us the pages of the hymns to sing in the morning.
At the end of the service we talk to the vicar. Lastly we go to the car, to find we cannot get out because there is acar at either end and the road is too narrow.
Russell Eadie, Form VI, The Wheasheaf (Pownall Hall), 1980.
.... At the start of the schoo year the headmaster reminded us of the tasks that lay ahead both in ans out of school and suggested that our attitude should not be guided by 'Will it pass? or 'Will it pay?' but rather by 'Will it please?' Later in the term we heard from Mr. Footner much of the Boy Scout Law and the relevance of it in our daily lives. We welcomed a good friend, Nr. Gibson, from Dean Close for our Harvest Thanksgiving Service. He was in great vein and with varied references to Karate After-Shave, his daughters' adventures with a runaway laen mower and sunflower seeds which grew into giants he preached on the theme of 'You reap what you sow'. .... Towards the end of the term the Heasmaster of Eton, Mr. McCrum, takled to us about B.B.C., Brick, Box and Cross -- the last named symbolliing the crossing out of the "I" in each of us, whilst Bricks and Boxes of matches can be used or misused, to create or destroy, to give warmth or annihilate. It was a moving address in which he ended with the analogy of the lighted match which gives out light and heat and which gives it whole self in so doing. We started the Easter term with a welcome visit from Mr. P.P.S. Brownless, who warned against the prophets of doom and gloom and realistically told us that inflation bred as one of its by-products, a grasping attitude. .... Mr, Nigel Goodwin of the Arts Centre Group spoke brilliantly on the Drama of Life and acted a twentieth century versiin of the Prodigal Son. Ringo, Bingo and Ben will long live in our memories! Finally at the end of the termwe were honoured to have the Master of Wellington with us when he spoke on Vocation. ... and at the end of theterm the Hedmaster wound up with the need for a timetable in our lives: time for work, time for play and time for prayer. Our Chpel Wardens, Patrick Green, Jocelyn, and Andrew Fedrick latterly joined by Lance Gerrard-Wright, kept the wheels tirning and the candles burning, whilst the Library Boys have done a splendid job in looking after visitors, often squeezing more people than would seem possible into the visitors' pews. The Christmast Term ended with a family Carol Service in Winkfield Parish Church amidst a welcoming throng of parents, friends and Old Boys. Chpel Collections this year amounted to £395.20. Amongst those who we supported were: British Legion, Blue Peter Kampuchea Fund, Carel van Meeuwen Trust, Thalydomide Children, Winkfield Parish Church, The Scripture Union and the East Africa Emergency Appeal Fund.
Lambrook Chronicle, 1980.
Chapel at Great Walstead, not just the building, but more particularly what goes on in it, is very special and quite unlike anything that I have come across before. Taken week by week and Sunday by Sunday by different members of staff with the occassinal visiting speakers a vast range of Christian teaching is covered in the year. This is all soundly based in Scripture and expounded and illustrated in such a way that it would be difficult to become bored or to fail to catch onto the central points being put over.'
Gigantic visual Aids produced by the Arts Department under the wtchfuk eye of Mrs. Horspool and on occasions by the maestro herself augment th home-brewed sketches. These are often funny and sometimes very funny and always enjoyed by the participants and congregation alike. There is never any shortage of volunteers! The singing, too, is a great inspiration not least because it is so excitingly accomplished by Mr. Buzzard, Mr Hulme and other instruments
I am most grateful to all those members of staff who have prepared their Sunday services and weekday prayers so thoroughly and we trust that, under God's hand, what is spoken and heard will continue to bring blessing and encouagement to us all, children, parents amd staff. ....
KNB, Great Walstead Magazine 1987.
Sunday services are held in thevParish Church where the School provides the choir, thus encouraging participation in the life of the village community. Boys who are members of other denominatiins besides Church of England are welcomed. Special arrangements can generally be made for them to attend their own churches.
Brigtlands Preparatory School Prospectus
On Sundays, the boys first write their letters home and then go, by special bus, to Prestbury Church for the Family Service. After Lunch, in both Summer and Winter, the boys are free to occupy themselves just as they would on a Saturday afternoon. Walks or organised games are avoided as far as possible, although many choose to go on rambles and camping trips with one of the staff who is a qualified Mountain Leader. Saturday and Sunday afternoons, therefore, are really free times, so that each boy cn lean the art -- and have the satisfaction -- of developing his own talents and interests. Duty masters are, of course, there for supervision and guidance.
Beach Hall Prospectus
