Open the Book is a story telling project introduced 25 years ago by the Bible Society. Trained volunteers from local churches take God’s message into primary schools using stories, drama and songs.
More than 3,000 schools nationwide enjoy Open the Book, including several within the Diocese of Winchester, enabling churches to build relationships with their local primary schools and sow the seeds of faith in these young lives.
One of those is St Mark’s Church in Highcliffe, where volunteers visit their local primary school each week.
Mike Goodman, the team leader, said, “It’s part of our ministry as members of the church in Highcliffe. We want to build close relationships with the primary school and the school indeed do come to the church for other events during the year. We wanted to use the Open the Book material produced by the Bible Society to enable us to lead assemblies with a Christian content and dramatize each story. We are also blessed to have a volunteer who plays the piano so that we have some singing as well. All together it makes a very nice assembly. The school enjoy having us and I think the children enjoy the stories as well. So, it works for everybody.”
Open The Book started at Highcliffe St Mark Primary with two people seven years ago, but quickly built up to a team of eight, who take responsibility for acting, props, costumes and music.
They visit the school each Tuesday morning, presenting different stories to around 150 children in Reception Class and Years One and Two. They use the Lion Storyteller Bible, and the Bible Society provide handbooks with a guide on how to tell the stories with an introduction, conclusion and prayer.
This week the team told the story of Paul seeing the light on the road to Damascus. There is a narrator and storytellers, in costume, who act out the story. Some pupils are also invited to be part of the cast, and all enjoy the song at the end. The assembly lasts just 20 minutes.
Church volunteer Peter Melvin said, “The Bible is what we all want to adhere to, knowing about God, knowing about Jesus, knowing about the Holy Spirit, and Open the Book offers opportunities to come into the school and to tell stories to the children. We know there is already a response because the teachers tell us that the children really look forward to Open the Book and are enchanted to be in the hall and engaging with the story that comes from the Bible. We don’t really know what’s going to happen in the future with these children, but we trust God that he will speak to them as he’s spoken to us. He will speak to these children as they grow up and help them to have a relationship with God and Jesus and have the Holy Spirit in their lives as well.”
Alison Hedger writes songs and plays the music for the Open the Book assembly. She said, “Open the Book is very important as Christian witness. It’s an opportunity to bring Christian songs to children and to have some fun, but mostly to bring the message of Jesus. I go back to my own childhood and every Tuesday afternoon, when I was in primary school, I used to be so excited because the vicar was coming to talk about Jesus. So, I always think, drop a few small seeds and let’s hope a majority of them will sprout.”
Open the Book is part of the church’s long-standing relationship with the Highcliffe St Mark Primary and several children from the school also come to the church’s Breakfast@9 informal service on a Sunday morning.
Headteacher Claire Barker added, “We are blessed with the most fantastic team of people who are so dedicated to our school and to our children and who give it their all every week. They come with the props and the costumes, and they throw themselves into it and the children get so much out of it. So much so that, because we only have it in Key Stage 1 at the moment, the Key Stage 2 children are asking for it too because they remember it from when they were younger.
“Year on year when the stories come back, the children have a deeper understanding and it’s lovely to hear the recall and the enthusiasm that the children talk about it as well. It’s a wonderful resource if you want to call it that, but it’s so much more than that too.”
