As a church, we are committed to seeing our children and young people come to Christian faith for themselves.
There is a variety of provision for children and young people at St Mary’s.
- For children under four, a special crêche area is available in the church for children to play and learn while services of worship are going on and they can be supervised by parents.
- Sunday School covers children from reception age to year eight of secondary school. The children are in church for the first hymn and then go to special age-appropriate activities.
- Once a month, on the second Sunday of the month, the All-Age Service breaks the usual pattern by involving children throughout the service instead of having Sunday School. The service is not a Communion service (and so is shorter), the talk involves the children and children take part throughout by participating in the music, readings and prayers.
- Our Treblemakers junior choir gives children (seven years and above) the chance to have fun with singing, they learn about music theory and contribute once a month to our services. Find out more here.
- We support our Team Messy Church, which meets monthly on the fourth Sunday of the month at 4.00 p.m. and rotates around a variety of local venues in our seven parishes.
- We also support Stepping Stones, a Friday after-school club who meet in Ryarsh.
- Teenagers in school years 9 to 13 attend our Team Youth Group called ‘Fusion’ which meets monthly at St Martin’s, Ryarsh on a Friday evening. They are also encouraged to join in on Sundays with the adults and take part in the life of the church in various ways.
It is important that our children and young people are safe when in the care of adults running our activities. We are committed to making sure we follow best practice in safeguarding. Further details are available in our safeguarding policy statement here.