The warm weather and blue skies we are seeing this past week are preparing the way for some wonderful outdoor prayer spaces. There are lots of reasons why outdoor prayer spaces are brilliant – to find out why you might like to run an outdoor prayer space, have a look at this article.

If you’re thinking of running an outdoor prayer space, here are our top 10 tips (by Jane Gillis from Bristol Schools Connection).

1. Use activities that connect with nature and your surroundings, rather than just doing normal prayer space activities outdoors.
2. Pick a quiet area of the school site.
3. Make sure that the children and your team are appropriately dressed for the weather – layers and waterproofs.  This might mean that school communicates with parents/carers about what the children need to wear.
4. Make sure that quite a few of your activities can carry on even if there is light rain.  Use resources that are weatherproof.
5. Have some sort of shelter that you can retreat to if necessary – the school might have a permanent structure, or you could put up a big tent/outdoor event shelter/gazebo/tarp.
6. Have a deluge plan – what you will do if the heavens open.  This might involve having some prayer space activities that you could quickly set up in an available indoor space.  You can then move outdoors again when the weather improves. 
7. Have a backup day just in case the weather forecast is awful for most of the day and you need to reschedule.
8. Think about the security of the school site if you are running the prayer space over a couple of days.  You might need to pack up at the end of the day and set up again the following day.
9. Invite the parents/carers to come and visit the space at the end of the school day.
10. Before you run a full day outdoor prayer space, you might want to start off by running a guided, outdoor reflection session with just one class.  Work with a third of this class at a time (about 10 pupils) and run through just a few of the outdoor prayer activities with the group for about 30 minutes.  This way you can lead the group through each of the activities, see how well they work and build your confidence.

If you are planning on running an outdoor prayer space but you aren’t sure where to start, we have a training video that you can find here.

Don’t forget to register your prayer space and contact us at info@prayerspacesinschools.com for support!