It was wonderful to welcome the children and staff back to school today after the Christmas holidays. We wished everyone a happy new year and welcomed Mrs Irshad, our new Year 5 and 6 teaching and welfare assistant to our school family.  We got to light all of  our special advent wreath candles of hope, peace, joy and love and the special white candle that symbolised Jesus, as we weren't in school on Christmas Day. We then learnt all about Epiphany and joined in with the rhyming Bible story 'one hump. two humps, lumpety lump'. which tells the story of the wise men visiting Herod and the baby Jesus.  We discussed how Mary, Joseph and Jesus had  to flee from Bethlehem as Herod planned to kill Jesus. Desmond told us that they were refugees. We then explored what the special gifts were that the wise men brought to baby Jesus and what they meant. Gold symbolised a King, Frankincense symbolised God and Myrrh symbolised sacrifice. Harry noticed that they were the words from our hymn 'We Three Kings'  We reflected on how God has given us all special gifts and talents and  we talked to our partner about our gifts and how we could share them with others.  We shared some wonderful gifts such as huge smiles, hugs, football skills, art skills, our family and friends and the gift of kindness.   We finished with a special Epiphany prayer along with the Year of Prayer  putting on Holy clothes prayer and sang 'We Three Kings'.  How will you share your gifts with others this week and show respect  for other people's gifts?