Coming together for peace

April 19th 2016

The whole school had the opportunity to come together as a community on Friday for a whole school service. Led by School Chaplain, Rev Gurr, the theme for the service was “Peace”. This gave the girls an opportunity to understand the meaning of peace and why living peaceful lives is important.

As in previous years, the service was intended to be held outside on the school lawn, however the weather had other plans and the service had to be moved inside to the Sports Hall. Thankfully the gloomy weather did not prevent the girls from enjoying what turned out to be a beautiful occasion.

Rev Gurr talked to the girls about “The Peace Rose”, a rose developed by a French horticulturist, Francis Meilland between 1935 and 1939. Before the invasion of France, Meilland sent cuttings of the rose to Italy, Turkey, Germany, and the United States to protect the new rose. The rose was named “Peace” in 1945 as a way of remembering the importance of peace at the end of the war.

During the service the Year 6 Choir sang “Ave Verum” by Will Todd, which was followed by a performance from the Year 9 GCSE Dance class, entitled “Peaceful”. The Pre-Prep girls also took part by singing “Let there be peace on earth” by Sy Miller and Jill Jackson. Prep girls had also written prayers which they read to the rest of the school.

Earlier in the week, due to the good weather, Year 6 and Pre-Prep flew kites of peace, which is part of a global initiative to raise awareness of children affected by war. They thoroughly enjoyed the exercise and learnt a lot about peace and conflict along the way. To see these photos take a look at Pipers on Flickr.

The service was a fantastic way for the whole school to come together and look closely at an important theme which is often taken for granted.