When SRE and the school community work together

This is a story about an ordinary mum who makes intentional choices to impart a gentle, Christ-like influence in her diverse community. It’s a story about the impact that a Christian can have through involvement in SRE teaching and the local P&C.

Chantell lives in the Illawarra region with her husband and their three primary-aged children, who all have additional needs. She became a Christian through high school SRE, so she knows first-hand the importance of keeping SRE in public schools. After starting off as an SRE classroom helper, she now teaches a combined year 1 & 2 SRE class. Chantell shares,

Representative image — does not depict the individual in this story.

“Being an SRE classroom helper is a great way to get a feel for whether you might be able to give SRE teaching a go.”

In addition to teaching SRE, Chantell also joined her kids’ school’s P&C, seeing it as an opportunity for her family to be intentionally Christian in a space that is very diverse. She says,

“I've been convinced for a number of years now that as Christians we want to be equipped to relate to people across different walks of life. Our local public school is incredibly inclusive, so although our family has a belief system that isn’t the majority one within the school community, we can still safely be who we are in that environment. It’s this same inclusion that also allows the SRE platform to exist.”

A school P&C helps parents and teachers partner for the benefit of the students and their learning. Chantell realised that there were similarities in the values she took from being involved in her church’s kids ministry, where she saw the benefits for kids when their parents partnered with the kids’ church leaders in discipleship.

Her kids’ school already had a partnership with the community-minded local church, which opens up their large car park for parents and high school students to use during the week, and shares their auditorium with the school for their presentation assemblies.

Recently, for the school’s combined Book Week and Grandparents Day event, the P&C wanted to put on a morning tea for the school community but were aware of the difficulty in recruiting volunteers for the event. Chantell suggested asking for help from the church across the road, and got a wonderful, fast response from church members – most of whom were SRE teachers – who not only volunteered to serve the morning tea but offered to bake for it too!

“They practised hospitality and showed God’s love in a very practical way for their local community. The other P&C members saw that there was something genuine about the love that these church volunteers showed – people who don't even have kids at the school, so there was nothing for them to gain personally by helping, except that they want the community to thrive.”

Do you want to have an impact for Christ by volunteering in your local school community? If Chantell’s story has inspired you to consider getting involved in SRE as a helper or teacher, you can find out more about this here.