Sparkfish

SparkFish is a local, collaborative, Christian organisation that engages with all young people who go to school in Reigate, Redhill, Merstham and Horley, offering support in important areas of the curriculum and school life. We are so blessed to have our office in the basement of St John’s Community Centre and we love being part of your local community!

SparkFish aim to inspire and encourage young people in faith, hope and love. We seek to help young people to reach beneath the surface of life - to explore their identity and relationships, their values and beliefs. We have an amazing seven trustees, five members of staff and over 50 volunteers who join us every year in our events with local schools.

SparkFish offers three strands of work to all schools, from early years to sixth form:

1. Think

SparkFish helps schools provide space in the curriculum for spiritual development. The school sets a room aside for several days and the SparkFish team converts it into THINK. This is a special space for students to reflect, wonder, ponder and, if they wish, pray.

2. Hope

Support for students at times of change and challenge - through mentoring, courses and workshops. SparkFish seeks to walk alongside young people, especially at times when they might appreciate support. One such time is when they change schools - so we offer a programme to support transition from Year 6 to 7. This goes beyond practical advice, helping students to explore their feelings of gratitude and loss, fear and hope.

3. Learn

SparkFish aims to explain the Christian faith intelligently, encouraging young people to make an informed choice. We offer schools help with RE lessons, assemblies and PSHE lessons. In Primary Schools, we offer a popular two-part RE programme for the main festivals of the year:

• The Christmas Journey is an interactive telling of the Nativity story for year 2 pupils.

  
  

• The Easter Experience is a dramatic presentation of Holy Week and Easter for year 5 pupils.

As part of our Hope strand work it has been great to partner with St John’s Redhill to support St John’s school with a lunch club for year 6 in the summer term. The aim of the club is to support year 6 children to feel prepared for their move to secondary school. We chat about how secondary school is different from primary school, how to be organised and prepared, and we chat about making new starts and new friends. We also have time for questions, discussion and some craft. All year 6’s are provided with a copy of Scripture Union’s ‘It’s your Move’ booklet to help them prepare to make a positive start in their new schools.

If you would like to learn more about SparkFish then please do visit our website: www.sparkfish.org.uk. You can also find us on Instagram and Facebook. We are always on the lookout for volunteers – both behind the scenes and in person so please do get in touch if you feel this is something you would like to get involved with!

If you wish to donate towards the work of SparkFish, you can do so online through our website sparkfish.org.uk/donate. We also have a downloadable standing order form on our website.

You can contact us at office@sparkfish.org.uk SparkFish is a Registered Charity No. 113968