School Scenes

Delivering assemblies at the infants school is still a new experience; I sit in front of the children and realise how few of them I am very familiar with having spent a year, really, not going anywhere near the place. On Monday I waited for the headteacher to finish her assembly with Year 1 before I did mine with Year 2. She was relating the story of St Paul escaping Damascus by being lowered down the city wall in a basket. As the children lined up to leave the hall, one small boy pointed out to me that 'It was still Jesus helping Paul, because he gave people the idea to rescue him'. 'Ah, you're doing what's called theology', I replied.

I looked out of the window at the playground where Year 2 were finishing break before coming in to hear me tell them the story of Pentecost. On the far side two small girls were engaged in what appeared to be a deeply serious conversation, in between bites of apples. They were using emphatic, nay histrionic, gestures, waving, pointing, holding out their hands as each replied to whatever point the other had made. I wonder what they were talking about. They looked like a pair of seven-year-old French philosophers.