There are various education centres in and around Saint Peter's:

• St Peter’s C of E Primary School
  

• St Luke’s C of E Primary School
  

• The Derby High School
  

• Holy Cross Sixth Form College
  

• Millwood Special School
  

• William Kemp Heaton Centre
  

• Re:D Centre

St. Peter’s Church and Education
St. Peter’s has a long tradition of work in education. The parish has two controlled primary schools and under Pastoral Re-organisation two more will be added in the amalgamated parish.

It has always been expected that the incumbent be a Governor of both schools, although this may not be practicable in an enlarged Parish. At present the Chairs of both Governing bodies are members of the PCC and both schools have several governors who are church members.

The schools are regular visitors to church – for end of term services, Christingle, Harvest and for Education Sunday as well as for class lessons when appropriate. The church supports the schools in many ways and past incumbents have regularly visited the schools both pastorally and to lead assemblies.

Education within the Church
Education or nurture as we prefer to call it plays a very important part in church life.

Adult Nurture
Adult nurture within the congregation has a major role too. It is the focus of ministry of one of our Readers and over past years the 16 week Emmaus Course has been run three times and it has formed part of the adult confirmation preparation in those years.

Approximately 50 members of the congregation have followed the course. Advent and Lent courses are held each year and between times there have been short studies including “What Is the Bible?” and “Four Studies and a Party”. The aim continues to be to help people understand and articulate their faith.

Admission to Holy Communion
St. Peter’s was one of the first parishes to admit young people to Holy Communion before being confirmed. The Diocese of Manchester asked parishes to try the scheme on an experimental basis. The PCC unanimously agreed the scheme so, since 1984 we have allowed children to be admitted to Holy Communion after a course of instruction. Initially the parish produced its own course but more recently Margaret Withers’ ‘Welcome to the Lord’s Table’ has been used. The children aged 7 to 11 years, attend worship or Keyfolk prior to the lessons each Sunday.

At St. Peter’s we believe in involving children in as many aspects of church life as possible, so receiving Holy Communion as part of the worshipping family is one aspect of this. The children take it seriously and feel they are just as important as the adults.

Confirmation
A small number of adults have been confirmed in recent years, often as a result of their involvement with the Emmaus Course. However an increasing number of young people have been confirmed, many of whom have previously been admitted to communion but who feel that they would like to take the extra step of confirmation. The policy is to confirm any youngster who is at High School (11 years and upwards) who wishes to be confirmed and who completes the course of preparation. The course book used is ‘Faith Confirmed’ by Peter Jackson and Chris Wright.

Keyfolk

……and so I tell you, Peter, I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven… (Matthew 16.19)

Keyfolk is the name of our young people’s group that meets during the service on a Sunday. We use this name to remind us that St. Peter was offered the keys to God’s kingdom.

We average around 25 children each week between the ages of 5 and 11. We have 3 leaders and 4 additional helpers. All potential leaders or helpers undergo CRB checks before working with our young people. Where possible, and space permitting, we have activities for the different age groups. The children enjoy sharing their work with everyone at the end of the service, and regularly display their work around the church. The children take part in readings and prayers during the children’s services and play a key role in the Leaves of Life services, preparing hundreds of leaves as invitations and to decorate the church. The highlight of the year is the nativity play which the children perform during one of the Sundays during Advent and again at the crib service on Christmas Eve. Every child plays a part, and the baby bay toddlers form our choir of angels.

Child Friendly Church Award
At the end of 2008, St. Peter’s was thrilled to become one of the first churches in the Diocese to receive the Child Friendly Church Award. This award has been designed to encourage parishes to ‘welcome and integrate children and their families into the worshipping life of their church.’

Visitors seeing the Child Friendly logo on a church notice board are assured of a standard of quality in the value placed on children there. To get the award, we had to prepare a portfolio of evidence to show that we met the range of set criteria relating to our church building, services and support for our children and young people.

We were very proud to receive our certificate during our Education Sunday service in 2009

Baptism
St. Peter’s has an open baptism policy believing that it is not the church’s job to put obstacles in the way of those who wish for baptism yet at the same time trying to help baptism families understand more of what baptism means. Several different approaches have been tried over the years and recently a new policy has been produced but this has yet to be ratified by the PCC. So at the present time some preparation is given prior to the baptism and members of the Mothers’ Union are always present at baptisms outside the main Sunday service. Families are invited back to some specific services during the year such as Christingle, Mothering Sunday, Harvest, Crib service and to Candlemas when they are asked to bring their baptism candles with them for use in the service. A birthday card from the church is sent each year up to the age of 5 when they are then invited to join Keyfolk.

Baptisms take place in either the 10.00am Parish Communion on the first Sunday in the month on a quarterly basis or at 12 noon on the third Sunday in each month.

Education in Bury
Bury as an Education Authority is consistently producing results above the national average and the schools of the borough have very good reputations in both the primary and secondary sections.

The High Schools within or very close to the parish all stand proud in the league tables and Bury Church High School is the local Church of England school and one with an excellent reputation.

There are two Sixth Form Colleges – one in the parish which is run by the Catholic Church and both have achieved ‘outstanding’ in recent OFSTED Inspections.