Religious Education Highlights 

Passover 

Moriel Smolyar, Year 12

Renae Bekas from Year 7, Lolly Seligmann from Year 8 and Hannah McCorquodale from Year 11 and I had a wonderful time experiencing a women’s interfaith model Passover run by the National Council of Jewish Women Australia.

Students from diverse cultural backgrounds learned about the traditions of Passover, an eight-day Jewish celebration commemorating 

emancipation of the Isralities from slavery in ancient Egypt.

We learnt about the interesting roles of prominent Jewish women in history, and the night helped empower girls to stand up for their beliefs and contribute to society in all its dimensions.

We learnt prayers, songs and the symbolism of traditional foods eaten at Pesach as well as had a wonderful dinner where we could hold discussions with women from all over the community.

Thank you Mrs Douglas for facilitating this very special opportunity.

Pop Up Prayer Space

Christina Douglas, Religious Education Teacher

Prayer Spaces in schools enable children and young people to stop, think and pray in a safe, creative and interactive way. People from all religious backgrounds and none are welcome. It is a place for meditation, deep thinking and nurturing the spirit.

During our last week of Term One, which we call Heart and Soul week, we organised a ‘pop-up’ version of a prayer space at Kilvington. Using an empty Year 5 classroom, we set up the prayer space with many interactive stations that, over a period of four days, helped our students experience a ‘sacred’ moment and offered a beautiful space for reflection and stillness.

The stations we had included:

Prayer Wall: In Jerusalem there is a wall called a wailing wall where people have posted their thoughts and prayers to God for nearly 2,000 years. In a similar fashion, students were encouraged to write down and post their thoughts, reflections or prayers on the wall.

Praying in Colour: Sometimes we want to pray or have an issue we are reflecting upon, but we don’t have words to express ourselves. Students were invited to colour in the mural and think about those things that were weighing heavily on their hearts and minds. Students also used the mural to be mindful and let go of things that were overwhelming them.

Bubble Prayers: Students were encouraged to think about those things that they were worried about at home, school or other areas. They then used the bubbles to blow their worries away. Some chose to blow bubbles which they found calming and relaxing. One student was also overheard saying, ‘I am blowing away my maths test!’

Students were invited to participate during lunchtime as well as during scheduled class times. Staff also came and visited during the week.

We look forward to making this an annual event at Kilvington.