‘Teach a child how he
should live and he will remember it all his life’
- Proverbs 22:6

The BEST Trust has been working in partnership with local schools for many years and includes among its workers a number of members of Mount Zion Independent Methodist Church.

All ages are covered from nursery schools to sixth form colleges, after school clubs and special presentations.

The Mount Zion BEST team of Alan, Pauline and Shirley have regularly been involved in 30 primary schools and six nurseries in Burnley and Padiham. Mary Cliff and her team from Hurstwood have continued to take assemblies in both primary schools and colleges. After school clubs, a regular Christian Union and chaplaincy input at Burnley College have also been part of the ongoing work.

During the year a prayer book featuring children’s prayers from most of our schools was complied and these are being used in assemblies and for class prayers. A request was made for us to produce a DVD of our songs and these are being widely used in schools. One has been sent to a school in Japan after a visiting delegation shared an assembly.

Again this year 900 year six pupils received a copy of the Scripture Union booklet “It’s Your Move” to help them with their transfer to high school.

Again the narrow boat “The Bill Hunt” was hired and all the schools were invited to be involved, 20 

schools took up the offer and enjoyed the “NarrowBoat Experience”. The age range was from the young pirates of Rosegrove nursery to a number of year six groups.

We have a very good relationship with the staff and pupils in all the schools and we feel very privileged to be invited in on such a regular basis, some schools even changing their timetable to fit us in. As many as 2,000 young people can be reached with the Gospel Message in any one week and we pray that the work may long continue.

We thank everyone for their interest, encouragement and prayers along with the financial support.