It's great being a kid at Cuddesdon!
There's acres of ground to run around in, trees to climb and camps to build - and with 63 cgildren in and around College this year - more children than ordinands - there's always someone to play with.
Most of the kids at College go to Garsington School www.garsington.oxon.sch.uk - the bus picks us up from the end of College Lane. Some of us to go Wheatley Primary www.wheatley.oxon.sch.uk and the older kids go to Wheatley Park Secondary School www.wheatley-park.oxon.sch.uk. There are plenty of good nurseries and playgroups about too - College pre-schoolers this year are at Little Owls in Great Milton, Horspath Nursery School in Horspath and the Little Playgroup at Wheatley.
Kids are welcome at tea and at meals in College, as well as at other social events - film nights, Bright Hour and most recently a Mama-Mia sing-along evening. We organise lots of fun stuff for kids throughout the year like, this year, a recycling party (organised by the kids themselves to make the College aware of environmental issues); an Easter egg hunt; a summer treasure hunt and BBQ; a Light Party (at Halloween); and our Advent Party when Juggling John came along and juggled with fire in the dark.
Every Wednesday during the College Eucharist we have Kids Church run by parents; staff and students, alternating between Create (the arty-crafty session), Games (the just-for-fun one), or Godley Play (listening and reflecting on Bible stories together). On Sundays the children either go to placement churches or come to All Saints' in Cuddesdon where we have Sunday Club.
Rebecca, aged 8 says this about living in college:
“We’ve got a toy room and a TV room so there’s never nothing to do. There are so much grounds to play in and there’s always someone to play with. Even in the summer when some people go away, there’s always people to play with, you can have someone round to play at your house every single day. There are loads of dens and you can have adventures that you can’t have in normal houses. The Runcie building is like one big house that we all share. And you can make new friends each year, much more friends than when you normally move house. There are lots of little children, but there are older children too, and the boys don’t mind playing with the girls and the girls don’t mind playing with the boys, it’s like one big gi-normous family. It’s good because we have a bus to go to school, and most of us go on the bus to school together, so you can choose who you want to sit with. So when you first move in, you make some friends, then you already know some people when you start school. So like we met some new friends in August, then when we got to school we asked if we could sit together on the first day. It’s really safe here, the parents feel safe for the children to run around in college, and to go down the nature reserve. That’s really interesting, because you can go down there and have a new experience. If you’re outside and you’re on your own and if you hurt yourself, then someone is always there and will help you. The college itself is really big, so there is lots of space, even when it’s raining we can play hide and seek in the college and we can go all the way upstairs. And when our parents are in the library we can go up and read books too. There are lots of adults for us to make friends with too. Like Lizzie who lives in Liddon, we have a knitting club with her every Sunday. The food is really great and we all go in on Friday nights, and we go in on some other nights too, and on Sundays there is a really great roast dinner. There are more kids here than students this year, so you can never be bored here. And there are lots of people who are around and can look after you and babysit for you, so your parents can go out in the evenings. My dad looks after us on his own, and there are lots of people who can look after us if he has to be in a lecture and it runs over, but also the teachers are all really nice and they don’t mind if he has to leave a lecture early to come and get us from the bus.”
Anna, aged 13 wrote this about living here:
“Cuddesdon - a beautiful, remote, countryside village. At the heart of Cuddesdon there are a few tall, elegant golden stone buildings surrounded by amazing landscape, full of nature. This is the theological college – Ripon College Cuddesdon. It is a place where people come to train for ministry and to learn about God. I happily live here with my family, along with several other families of the many training ordinands. In the community it is extraordinarily free, I have loads of friends, most of whom I see every day – we always have the freedom to go outside around the breathtaking grounds and intricate forest, free to be in our own little worlds of creation. We’re always making our little dens in the woods, using everything we stumble across to produce makeshift chairs and anything we can to try and make them feel like home. It’s the perfect place for hiding and running games, with the huge expanses of grass, trees which seem like they were made for climbing and all those little nooks and crannies in the buildings which are extremely well-hidden. Most of our closest friends and I are going to have to leave in a few months because our parents’ training finishes. We’re all moving away to different places… to normal houses on a normal street – our magical freedom will all be lost. I will miss this wonderful place a lot and it will be extremely hard to leave, so I hope that these next few months will take their place as some of the best in my childhood.”
For a copy of the College Children's Handbook, please click here.
