“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
Psalm 51:10

At Cavendish Church of England Primary School, Friday afternoons have a distinctive purpose.

Flourish Friday creates protected time each week for children to explore what it means to flourish — personally, spiritually and as members of a community.

Rooted in our Christian vision, We Learn. We Love. We Belong., Flourish Friday brings together wellbeing, spirituality, Christian understanding, stewardship, service and courageous advocacy. It gives children opportunities not only to learn about our values, but to live them out.

We want pupils to understand that flourishing is about more than individual success. It is about knowing ourselves, building healthy relationships, caring for others, looking after the world entrusted to us and recognising that our choices and actions can make a positive difference.

Why Flourish Friday?

Our taught curriculum gives pupils the knowledge and skills they need across each subject. Flourish Friday has a different, complementary purpose.

It provides regular space for children to:

develop emotional understanding and strategies for wellbeing;
explore our Christian vision and biblical teaching;
reflect on values and their relevance to everyday life;
care for our school and environment through stewardship;
develop responsibility, service and leadership;
encounter issues that matter to other people and the wider world;
consider how they can respond through courageous advocacy; and
reflect upon their own actions, relationships and contribution to our community.

Flourish Friday deliberately brings together different aspects of personal and spiritual development, while complementing — rather than replacing — our taught curriculum, PSHE/RSE and Collective Worship.

Our Flourish Friday Approach

Children work in smaller groups and rotate through four carefully planned strands across the afternoon.

Although each strand has a different emphasis, they are connected by a common question:

How can we flourish ourselves and help others to flourish too?

Vision in Action

Our Vision in Action strand helps children explore what our school vision looks like beyond words on a wall.

Children consider themes such as belonging, love, respect, listening, joy, hope, service and responsibility and think about how these can be demonstrated through their choices and relationships.

Activities provide opportunities for discussion, creativity, reflection and practical response.

As children grow older, they are increasingly encouraged to move from simply identifying a value to considering:

What does this mean?
Why does it matter?
What might I do because of it?

In this way, children learn that values become meaningful when they influence the way we live.

Bible Storytelling

Bible storytelling gives children regular opportunities to encounter stories from the Christian tradition in an engaging and accessible way.

Through storytelling, discussion, puppets and reflection, children explore biblical narratives and consider the questions and ideas they raise.

Children are encouraged to think, wonder and respond rather than simply being told what a story means.

They might consider questions such as:

What does this story tell us about people?
What might it tell Christians about God?
What choices did people make?
What can we learn from this story?
Does it make us wonder about anything?

This supports children's developing religious literacy and spirituality while complementing — but remaining distinct from — both our taught Religious Education curriculum and Collective Worship.

myHappymind and Wellbeing

Understanding ourselves is an important part of flourishing.

Through myHappymind, children learn about their brains, emotions, relationships and the strategies they can use to support their wellbeing.

Sessions follow the structured myHappymind programme so that knowledge develops progressively and children hear consistent language across school.

The programme supports children to develop greater:

self-awareness;
emotional understanding;
resilience;
self-regulation;
confidence;
understanding of relationships; and
appreciation of their own strengths and those of others.

This sits alongside our wider PSHE/RSE curriculum, which also develops children's understanding of emotional health, relationships, citizenship, rights, responsibilities and making a positive contribution to their communities.

Our aim is not to suggest that children should feel happy all of the time. Instead, we want them to develop the knowledge, language and strategies to recognise emotions, respond appropriately and seek support when they need it.

Stewardship

Our Stewardship strand helps children understand that belonging also brings responsibility.

Children have practical opportunities to care for their school environment through activities such as gardening, tending our allotment, caring for the school grounds and developing ECO initiatives.

The focus is not simply upon completing a gardening task.

Adults help children think about the bigger ideas behind their actions:

Why should we care for the world around us?
Who shares this space with us?
What difference can small actions make?
What responsibility do we have for what happens next?

This connects naturally with learning elsewhere in our curriculum, where pupils consider environmental responsibility, sustainability and the impact that people's choices can have. Our Geography curriculum, for example, includes age-appropriate sustainability enquiries ranging from caring for a garden to considering actions that might make the wider world more sustainable.

For us, stewardship is both practical and reflective: children care, contribute and understand why their actions matter.

Courageous Advocacy

A central ambition of Flourish Friday is to develop children who recognise that they have agency.

At Cavendish, courageous advocacy is not simply another word for fundraising.

We want children to learn a thoughtful process:

Notice → Understand → Care → Act

First, children notice something that matters.

They then learn enough to understand it rather than rushing immediately towards an action.

They are encouraged to develop empathy and genuinely care about the people, community or issue involved.

Only then do they consider how they might appropriately act.

That action may be small. It may involve changing something within school, caring for the environment, raising awareness, helping someone else, contributing to our village or responding to a wider local or global issue.

The important thing is that children increasingly understand why they are acting and whose needs they are responding to.

As pupils mature, we want them to become increasingly capable of identifying issues themselves, asking questions, listening to different perspectives and considering what an informed and compassionate response might look like.

A Progressive Approach

Flourish Friday is designed for children across the primary age range.

Younger pupils may begin by exploring ideas through stories, talk, pictures, practical activities and simple choices.

Older children are increasingly expected to consider different viewpoints, make connections, ask deeper questions, take responsibility and contribute ideas for action.

The same broad theme can therefore unite the school while the level of questioning, independence and response becomes increasingly sophisticated.

Our mixed-age structure supports this particularly well. Children have opportunities to listen to one another, collaborate across ages and see older pupils model responsibility and leadership.

Reflection

Reflection is an intentional part of every Flourish Friday.

At the end of the afternoon, children come back together to consider what they have encountered and what it might mean.

Reflection might include discussion, quiet thinking, prayer, artwork, pupil voice or contributions to our Flourish Book, which helps us capture children's thinking, questions, actions and developing understanding over time.

Children are encouraged to consider:

What have I learned?
What made me think?
How did I contribute?
Has anything changed my thinking?
Is there something I now want to do?

This ensures Flourish Friday is not simply a series of enjoyable activities. Children are given time to make meaning from their experiences.

Our Themes

Across the year, Flourish Friday explores themes that connect closely with our vision and the needs of our community.

These include ideas such as:

We Belong – recognising our own worth and welcoming others.

We Love and Respect – understanding how our words and actions affect other people.

We Listen – recognising the importance of hearing different voices and perspectives.

Joy and Hope – noticing what brings joy and considering how hope can influence the way we respond to difficulty.

Healthy Minds and Flourishing – developing knowledge and strategies that support wellbeing.

We Serve – understanding that we can use our time, talents and actions for the benefit of others.

We Act – developing courageous advocacy and recognising that our choices can make a difference.

These themes are revisited and deepened rather than treated as one-off messages.

Flourish Friday and Our Christian Vision

Flourish Friday provides an important opportunity for children to explore our theologically rooted Christian vision in ways that are lived, questioned and experienced.

“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
Psalm 51:10

Our vision speaks of growth and renewal.

We want children to understand that flourishing involves continuing to grow — in knowledge, in character, in relationships and in our willingness to contribute to the flourishing of others.

Through Flourish Friday, children encounter opportunities to explore love, dignity, compassion, stewardship, justice, courage, hope, service and belonging.

Children of all faiths and worldviews are included fully. They are encouraged to ask questions, reflect upon their own ideas and listen respectfully to the convictions and experiences of others.

Flourish Friday therefore supports our ambition for children not simply to know our vision, but to understand what it might mean to live it.