Transforming Research into Practice

How we developed resources for school, home, and church from the empirical research

Exploring faith in the Nexus: resource to use with the parent's animation

Navigate to other related articles:
(new) Listening to children’s spiritual expression
Introducing the landmark study: Faith in the Nexus
Animating children’s voices: bring faith talk alive for adults and children at school and at home.
Nexus Research in Church Toddler Groups
Transforming Research into Practice

Research has the power to impact practice, yet all to often valuable insights remain bound to academic papers. At NICER we are committed to transforming our research into practice. Thus, following the completion of the Faith in the Nexus research, resources were created to support those involved with children’s spiritual nurturing within a Christian context. These resources provide evidence based practical suggestions of how school, home and parish church can provide children with opportunities to deepen the spiritual dimension of their lives.

The Nexus Toolkit comprises pdfs for school, home, and parish church, an animation for parents, and a teachers action pack. The pdfs can be used independently or as a series of discussion sessions. Each pdf draws upon the findings of the Faith in the Nexus research. The animation for parents includes an accompanying pdf prompting questions for reflection and discussion, while the teachers action pack provides a fully resourced assembly on the nature of spirituality for primary school children, links to the Nexus animations, discussion posters, and podcasts.

The research for this project was carried out in Roman Catholic and Church of England primary schools.

Faith Talk at Home:
Where do we find opportunities for children to talk about faith and spirituality.

Bible encounters:
How can we encouraged children’s encounters with the Bible, at home and in school?

Reflection Spaces:
How are we providing reflection time and space

Children’s Conversations about Death: Lets talk about death

Spiritual Wellbeing and Leadership: Addressing Children’s Spiritual wellbeing Needs

Sense of Belonging:
How are we sustaining a strong connection between local church and church school

Pupil Spiritual Leadership in School:
Recognising children as spiritual leaders in schools.

Sacramental Preparation:
How does the Faith in the Nexus Research inform Sacramental Preparation

Faith in the Nexus and the Domestic Church:
The Faith he Nexus research project

Teachers’ Action Pack