On Tuesday morning, Coventry Cathedral was filled with over 1000 excited children from Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire. They had gathered for a double celebration: the 200^th anniversary of Church Schools, and also the finale of a year-long pilgrimage.

 

The cathedral was bursting with colour, a real feast for the eyes. Representatives from seventy-five schools attended the service, and every school proudly took part in the procession with their school banner. Many of the banners had been created especially for the service.

 

Bishop Christopher was led into the Cathedral by a small child. During the service he captivated the children with an imaginative story about the lump of iron ore that eventually became the Coventry Cross of Nails.

 

2011 marks the Bi-centenary of the National Society, and an opportunity to look back and celebrate the foresight of Joshua Watson, who in 1811 set about instigating free schools for ‘the poor and needy children of their parishes’. It is from his passion and vision that Church of England Schools as we know them today have evolved.

 

This vision has been celebrated during the whole year. A pilgrimage of a Cross of Nails started its journey from the Cathedral Ruins in January, and it has passed through the hands of all 75 schools. Throughout the year pairs of schools have been meeting for an act of worship, and the Cross of Nails has been handed over from one school to the next.

 

The final leg of the pilgrimage took place on Tuesday morning as Bishop Christopher walked with pupils from Blue Coat School to the cathedral. Rebecca Hare, their Deputy Head Girl said, “It’s really exciting because being a Church School and a Cross of Nails School is such a big part of Blue Coat, and so meeting all the other schools is a massive honour for us. It has been wonderful because so much of the Cross of Nails community is the actual community. And so physically carrying the Cross of Nails round different schools was a wonderful way of bringing us together.”