Core Skills
Core Skills is an ongoing part of our training provision. It is a series of seven sessions that will be repeated regularly at different venues around the diocese as part of a rolling programme.
Check the Events page for details of current sessions and training venues.
Course content
Core Skills covers the following types of topics. With a mixture of leader input and group discussion and activities, we hope participants will begin to find answers to most of the questions they face in a positive and supportive atmosphere.
SESSION 1: HOW CHILDREN DEVELOP (Child development)
• How children develop – physically, emotionally, intellectually, socially, morally and spiritually.
• The different ways people learn.
• Our own experience and faith and how this might affect the way we work with children.
• Theories of human development.
SESSION 2: YOU AND YOUR SKILLS (Leadership skills)
• Looking at our skills and gifts and how we’d like to develop as children’s workers.
• Who supports us in what we do with children in the church and who provides resources and new ideas.
• Ways of thinking about the things we do in the children’s group, working out how they’ve gone and deciding if anything needs changing.
SESSION 3: PLANNING OUR ACTIVITIES (Programme planning)
• Planning activities to suit the different ways that different children learn.
• Making up our own activities as well as using published resources.
• Thinking about the different needs of our children when we decide what activities to do and how to do them.
• Remembering how sessions have gone in the past when we are deciding what new activities to provide.
SESSION 4: WELCOMING CHILDREN (Children and community)
• New and different ways of including children in the life of the church.
• Developing a ‘vision for children in our church’ and trying to promote it.
• Working out what facilities there are for children in the neighbourhood and what special things our churches could offer them.
• Finding ways of involving our children in the mission and ministry of our churches.
SESSION 5: CARING FOR CHILDREN (Pastoral awareness)
• Checking on knowledge of child protection procedures, health and safety policies, and other ways of keeping children safe in our churches.
• How the adults in our groups use their authority, and how power can sometimes be misused.
• Different positive ways of dealing with difficult behaviour
• How to be a good listener and be supportive to children when they have difficult situations to deal with.
SESSION 6: THE SPIRIT, THE BIBLE & PRAYER (Spirituality and the Bible)
• Thinking about what the words ‘spirituality’ and ‘faith’ mean to us.
• Helping children use the Bible in spiritual and prayerful activities.
• Finding opportunities for different kinds of spiritual experiences in our own lives.
• Different styles of prayer that people can use in church, in small groups and on their own.
