Acceptance is key at Trinity Church School

On 16th November, staff and members of the wider community were excited to welcome Simon Probyn, sculptor (www.simonprobyn.co.uk), and Dawn Reader, painter (www.dawnreader.com), to Trinity Church School for the official opening of their new sculpture.

The sculpture entitled ‘Acceptance’, was created by Simon Probyn, a sculptor from Herefordshire. It was created to represent Trinity, it’s vision and values and all it stands for. The school’s strapline: ‘Learning, Growing, Believing Together – encourage one another and build each other up’, was the inspiration for the piece. The sculpture is made from a series of 10 cogs, all different and all carefully balanced to form an impressive structure which greets you as you enter through the school gates. Colourful steel hands are linked to form a ‘belt’ which turns the cogs. It represents that at Trinity and in wider society we should all work together in harmony and respect and celebrate our differences. The sculpture is already proving to be a talking point among the children, with each considering their own interpretation of what the structure represents. Their thoughts have included friendship, strength, trust, courage, diversity and the mining tradition of Radstock.

On Tuesday 22nd November, the children and staff at Trinity Church School were joined by local author Beverley Douglas; sculptor Simon Probyn; Pamela Young from Radstock in Bloom and Don Morris the CEO of the Radstock CO-OP for the opening of our sculpture garden.

The November sun shone and the ceremony started with everyone singing one of our favourite songs, ‘Tower of Strength’. The cutting of the ribbon was then conducted by Beverley and Simon whilst we all eagerly looked on. Later in the morning, we took part in collective worship and discovered that Beverey’s book was all about her own life as a child and we are excited to be working with her in the New Year. Simon then described how he designed and engineered the seating area to match the magnificence and ethos of our sculpture ‘Acceptance’. We then watched a video of each class describing their feelings and sharing poems, songs and thoughts all inspired by the sculpture garden.