Year 8 Youth Alpha Day

Thanks to the partnership work between Ripley, the local church and para-church organisations, approximately 280 Year 8 pupils and staff have been able to spend a day at either St Thomas’ or Hope Churches in Lancaster, learning more about the Christian faith and the Holy Spirit.

At Ripley, we run a 6-week series of Youth Alpha with every Year 8 form group through the course of their year, covering topics such as “Life: is this it?”, “Jesus: who is he?”, “Cross: why did Jesus die?”, “Faith: how can I have faith?”, “Prayer: why and how do you pray?” and “Bible: why is it important and how do you read it?”

On one of the PSHE days, we bring the course together with the Youth Alpha Day hosted by the local churches and facilitated by an amazing team of around 30 church leaders and volunteers.

Pupils were fully engaged through an array of activities, videos, discussions, music, testimonies and short talks.  It has been an incredible opportunity to encourage the young people to think about what they believe and develop themselves spiritually, in line with our school’s vision and values.

Both staff and pupils enjoyed the day thoroughly – just a snippet of their feedback:

“It was brilliant, led so well by the church, kids were great”

“Thank you for all you did to deliver such a fantastic day along with the church volunteers”

“I was very impressed by the day, it was a very calming experience and the pupils were fantastic”  Staff

“How good was church yesterday?!”

“it was amazing!!” Pupils