Anglican Identity

Our Anglican Identity is the grounding on which Diocesan School is built. It permeates every aspect of our school life and the Christian principles of love, compassion, hope, justice and diversity are present in every area of the school. Our Anglican Identity is explicitly expressed through Chaplaincy, Service Learning and Religious Studies.

The Chaplains

The role of a Chaplain in an Anglican school is to lead worship, to nurture faith and personal identity, to assist the community to acknowledge and celebrate significant rites of passage, to encourage and challenge students and staff to engage in intellectual, moral, ethical and social issues, as they relate to their own lives, and to provide a confidential listening ear for anyone in the school community who may be in need in any way.

Chaplaincy and Pastoral Care

The Chaplains are both ordained Anglican Priests who provide a safe, confidential and professional Christian presence in the school where students, staff and members of the wider school community can find support. They work across the whole school community to ensure that we are living up to the Gospel principles of love, generosity, justice, peace, hope and service.

Teaching compassion

Students are strengthened and nourished by Christian worship and pastoral care, encouraged to value serving others as the ultimate achievement, and to explore Christian teaching plus their own and others’ belief systems. We aim to ensure that through these programmes our students are well rounded and compassionate human beings who go out from here to make a difference in the world

School Services

Students in the Junior School come to chapel services twice a week:
Services are 15-30 minutes in duration. The themes in Junior School chapel revolve around important values and link to stories from the Bible. At our services we sing, pray, and engage with the value and the Bible message. Chapel services are interactive and fun.
All students at Diocesan School are expected to attend some Sunday and other occasional chapel services. Students in the Junior School attend the Mothering Sunday Service which is usually held two weeks before Easter at Holy Trinity Cathedral. Students also attend their House Service on a Sunday morning in Term 3. At the end of the year the Junior School Carol Service is held in Holy Trinity Cathedral.

Religious Studies

Our Religious Studies programme in the Junior School is embedded into the Primary Years Programme and this culminates with a unit of inquiry in Year 6. The Chapel programme of values and Bible stories is also considered to be an important part of religious studies.

The essence of our philosophy is that we are spiritual beings and we all yearn for connection. Becoming more fully human is about acknowledging our desire for connection and nurturing our connection in three areas of our lives – our connection with our core selves, our connection with others in relationship, and our connection with the numinous.

Service Learning at Dio

Our desire to have Service Learning as a key focus at Diocesan emanates from Jesus’ teaching that we are to love our neighbour as ourselves. This love of neighbour is translated into practical action through our Service Learning Programme.

A good definition of Service Learning is:

"Service Learning is a research-based teaching method where guided or classroom learning is applied through action that addresses an authentic community need in a process that allows for youth initiative and provides structured time for reflection on the service experience and demonstration of acquired skills and knowledge.” (Berger Kaye, 2010)

Our motto is Ut Serviamus

Which can be translated as in order that we may serve. We have a commitment to ensuring that our students learn the concepts that underlie an ethic of service and have opportunities to be involved in meaningful service experiences that enhance their own learning while they are at school. We hope that this will continue to be an important part of their lives as adults, and that they will continue to serve their communities and love their neighbour as themselves.

We use a Head-Hands-Heart approach to service learning:

Service Learning in the Junior School is mainly integrated into the Primary Years Programme (PYP) and links authentically with the programmes of investigation at each year level. In Year 6 there is a particular focus on Service Learning for one week in Term 2.

Head:     Students investigate community needs, think through ethical issues and ideas, and plan activities and action. Part of the head process is to make their learning explicit with a presentation at the end.
Hands:   Students work together with community groups to carry out practical action to address the need they have identified.
Heart:    Integrating experience and learning with personal growth and awareness. Engaging in a reflective process considering what has occurred, and looking to the future.
Each year level focuses on a particular concept relating to service learning, investigates a need in the community, works with a community group to address that need, and then reflects on the whole process.

Year 6 Service Learning Week – Year 6 students have several service learning experiences in a week that connect them with organisations such as Anglican Trust for Women and Children, Ronald McDonald House and the City Mission. They go out of the school to visit these organisations and get involved with service activities such as making lunch for people at Ronald McDonald House and delivering donated food to the City Mission.

Fiji Service Learning Experience – This is an optional experience for Year 6 students to travel to Fiji for a service learning experience at St Christopher’s Children’s Home in Nausori. They interact with the children at the home and carry out service tasks such as painting, cleaning and helping with the pre-school children. They are also connected with St Joseph the Worker Primary School in Suva and engage in service tasks there such as sorting the library, building outdoor seats and painting.