Our Ethos committee works hard at Westcliff to encourage a positive spirit around the school. We listen carefully to any suggestions from other children surrounding the ethos of the school, we run assemblies where we share stories from different religions and we share the School Values Award every Friday. This is a special award that children receive when they have shown aspects of the school values here at Westcliff.

We host Ethos days and invite other schools to join in with a certain celebration. It’s a great way to mix with other children and share what different Ethos groups are doing in their schools.

On Thursday 6th February our Ethos team were invited to  Chudleigh Knighton to take part in their Ethos day , the theme for the day was Flourish.  During the day we thought about what we need to flourish as well as what the world needs. We took part in a quiz about the brain which we had the most correct answers out of the school attending. we looked at the story Your Fantastic Elastic Brain and learnt how our brains are always changing and learning.

Thank you CK for inviting us.

On Tuesday 24th September we were invited to Lady Seawards for our first Ethos day this year.

The topic was 'Aspire'. 

We completed a number of activities based on the theme of Aspire. Children were tasked with reading some quotes from famous people, including sporting legends and TV presenters and were asked to decided if their quotes represented the term of aspire in a positive way. The children then generated some words based on how they present themselves when they are aspiring to be the best they can be. They used their words to create some art work. 

In the afternoon the children were asked to organise a fundraising event to raise money for the charity Toilet Twinning so all countries can have hygienic toilets with running water. 

We finished off the day with some team building games and ended with a proverb for our thought of the day:

'When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion'. 

We were recently invited to Rockbeare to take part in an Ethos Day linked to Pentecost. We started the day by joining Rockbeare at their local church where we heard the story of Pentecost from the group 'Open The Book'.

We then went back to school where we took part in different activities such as baking cakes, making fire crowns and learning a different language.

On Friday 8th February Westcliff Ethos group went to Rockbeare to take part in a Noah's Ark themed morning.

We started the morning by listening to the story of Noah's Ark, we then had a challenge to make our own boat. The boat had to float and hold toy animals. Ours did float!

After break time we looked at the First Federation values and where we see these in the story of Noah's Ark.

On Thursday 6th December , we were invited to Chudleigh Knighton to take part in a Christmas Around The World Ethos Day. We visited the following countries  China, Finland, Mexico and The Netherlands to learn how these countries celebrate Christmas. We took part in different activities linked to these countries. 

In China they call Santa ‘Shen Do Lao Ren’. Often, people in China hang lanterns, paper chains and flowers from the Tree  Of Light.

Next we went to Finland to learn that they eat a lot of fish at Christmas. It is very dark and cold in Finland at Christmas time. We made Finnish stars.

After lunch we visited Mexico where we made A Mexican Gods eye as well as visiting the Netherlands where we decorated biscuits because they eat biscuits at Christmas!

Lastly we learnt all about St Nicholas and how he used to give to people less fortunate than him and he would leave pennies in peoples shoes.

We had good fun at CK today and learnt lots about how other countries celebrate Christmas. 

On Friday 15th June we went to Rockbeare for an Ethos day.

The day was based on the Creation. Mrs Burrows and Reverend Lane welcomed us all to Rockbeare.

During the day we made fruit salads, thinking about how the world God gave us provides food, we created a collage to help us to understand the Creation story and planted sunflowers to think about how we care for the world God gave us.

Thank you Rockbeare for hosting this Ethos day.

On Friday 18th May we held an Ethos Day at Westcliff Primary Academy. Our focus was Pentecost. Reverend Alan and Reverend Dallas taught us that Pentecost is a Christian festival celebrating the descent of the Holy Spirit on Jesus' disciples.

We also learnt how the disciples knew the Holy Spirit had come as it was not something that could be seen. There were signs of fire, wind and being able to speak other languages.

We took part in different activities to represent these signs. we made fire collages using paint, tissue paper and glitter.

We made our own kites and took them outside to fly them. This showed us there was wind around even though we couldn't see it.

After lunch, we played some parachute games linked to the fruits of the spirit which are love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

We then went to St Gregory's Church, we had a look at Reverend Alan's clothes that we will wear on Pentecost Sunday, we made prayer cubes using the fruits of the spirit and we sang a new song.

We then came back to school to join in with assembly and tell everyone what we had been learning about. 

On Friday 20th April we went to Chudleigh Knighton for our Ethos day.

We started our day at St Paul’s church where we were welcomed and were told what would be would doing for the day. We took part in an activity thinking about the Trinity. We made bracelets using three different colours which represented God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Sprit.

We then went to Chudleigh Knighton School, we joined in with playtime and played with friends we have made on previous Ethos days. We then made windmills which showed the three elements of the Trinity.

We enjoyed our lunch in the school garden.

After lunch we made salt dough, we then had to make something to represent the Father, the Son and The Holy Spirit. We enjoyed coming up with different designs.

In October we visited Lady Seawards to learn all about the Harvest Festival. We took part in different activities that were centred around out Big Question – ‘Why is there not enough food in the world to feed everyone?’

We are looking forward to our next Ethos day all about lent.