FAQs

What is Cross Connecting all about?

Cross Connecting helps Christian parents, teachers, churches, and Christian organisations to find each other and collaborate to support schools and young people. 

Over many centuries, churches in the UK have had a role to play to supporting children & young people in schools. However, finding new opportunities to serve and support our schools is getting more difficult. Cross Connecting’s platform helps you overcome various challenges so that you can more effectively meet the needs of your local school. We achieve this by helping you connect with the people you’re trying to find, and by resourcing you with what you need.

If you want to find out more, you can check out our article here.

The role that Christians play in supporting and empowering children / young people has never been more important. With the ever increasing challenges that our young people face, Christians can make a positive difference and impact in their lives. This includes giving young people the opportunity to explore what life has to offer on their own terms, including their big questions about life and faith. However, in the UK, opportunities to invest in young people in our churches are decreasing, with only a small minority of all young people involved in church life. If we are serious about investing in young people, it means supporting young people where they are: at school.

If you want to find out more, you can check out our article here.

Christians can support local schools through prayer, volunteering, mentoring , faith clubs, assemblies, pastoral support, and partnerships with churches and community organisations. Cross Connecting helps Christians find opportunities to connect with others involved in supporting their local school.

How does the Cross Connecting platform work?

Cross Connecting’s “Schools Connect” tool allows you find and connect (within the platform itself) with other Christians involved in your local school. This might be with other Christian parents, Christian staff at school, local church children & youth workers, or Christian organisations in your area supporting your school. These new connections will allow you to pray and work together more effectively as you support your local school.

You can access this free service here.

Cross Connecting’s Resources Hub is unique, because we do not create or sell any resources. This is a free and open platform where you can see resources that other platform users have created and used for their own school contexts, whether for school clubs, assemblies, RE/PSHE lessons, discussion groups, training guides, etc.  

You can access our free Resources Hub here.

If you are also keen to connect with others around the UK who are also involved in schools work, you can join the Schools Worker Network. This is a neutral network without any organisational agenda (and co-run in partnership with a number of other Christian organisations), and is a space where you can network and pray with others also serving their local schools / learn from others / bless others. This network is particularly for children & youth workers at church, or team members of Christian organisations who invest in schools.

You can find out more about this opportunity here.

Whether you are using our Schools Connect tool, our Resources Hub, or are part of the Schools Worker Network, we collect the minimum information required for these services to be useful to you (such as name and email address so that you can log in with your free account). We do also gather data about the role(s) you have, so that we don’t communicate irrelevant information to you. 

None of your data is ever shared or made visible to anyone else. You can see our full Data Protection Policy here.

Cross Connecting is a non-profit, and wants to help Christians to overcome barriers to engaging with and supporting schools. We do not want to create financial barriers in their place. The Cross Connecting platform will therefore always be free to use.

If you have positively benefited from the work of Cross Connecting, then you are welcome to donate to help keep it going, but this is not a requirement to use our platform.

How do you support Christian Parents?

Not knowing who the other Christian parents are at school is likely your biggest challenge. Cross Connecting’s Schools Connect tool helps you to identify other Christian parents connected with your school community. This will give you the opportunity to ask other Christian parents whether such a group exists, and if not, you can even consider taking the initiative and starting one?

Check out our blog post for ideas, including an inspiring story of one mother who was brave and took small steps which made a big difference!

Not knowing who the Christian teachers are at school is likely your biggest barrier. You can use Cross Connecting’s Schools Connect tool to see if there are any Christian staff at your child’s school, whom you can contact, whose classroom your child may be able to borrow to run a faith club.

Going into a school and offering support on your own is likely quite difficult for most school contexts. However, there is likely a local church or a Christian organisation (i.e. established entities) in your area who would be interested in supporting your school, and would perhaps even appreciate you offering to volunteer with them. You can use Cross Connecting’s Schools Connect tool to find out who they are.

How do you support Christian teachers and others working in Education?

Not having enough time as a teacher to help with additional clubs at school, or not having the confidence to lead lessons out of your professional subject matter expertise (e.g. RE lessons) are likely barriers for someone like you. There is likely a church or a Christian organisation/charity locally who would be willing to offer their services for free to help run RE lessons and CUs / clubs. You can use Cross Connecting’s Schools Connect tool to find out who they are.

If you don’t have time to prepare your own material for school assemblies, RE lessons, CUs/clubs, then you can use Cross Connecting’s Resources Hub to access materials that others have used at school (similar to Twinkl). Cross Connecting has not produced these resources. The resources here are made by the community, for the community.

Not knowing who the other Christian staff are at school is likely your biggest challenge. Our Schools Connect tool helps you to discover who the other Christian staff are at your school. This will give you the opportunity to discover whether a staff prayer group exists, and if not, perhaps you can consider taking the initiative and starting one?

All communications will be kept within this platform, and your contact details will not be shared with anyone else (unless you manually choose to do so yourself).

The data we have gathered in our own research has shown that loneliness is one of the top lived experiences of Christian teachers. The data also says that there might well be Christian staff at your school that you don’t know about, but certainly Christian families whose children attend your school, who are keen to be a support for you, including praying for you. You can use our Schools Connect tool to discover who they are and to connect with them. 

All communications will be kept within this platform, and your contact details will not be shared with anyone else (unless you manually choose to do so yourself).

How do you support churches and Christian organisations?

Cold-calling your way into school is increasingly unlikely to work nowadays. Unless you have a longstanding relationship with a school, it can be difficult to know how to make an offer to your local school that will be taken seriously.

There are likely Christian families or school staff at the school you are seeking to support. Our Schools Connect tool helps you to identify existing Christian relationships within a school. They may be able to introduce you to the school’s senior management and help you start a new relationship with that school.

Not having enough team remains one of the biggest challenges for churches and Christian organisations. At the same time, there are an increasing number of Christian parents who are keen to support their children’s school but don’t know where to begin, and who would therefore be interested in volunteering with you. You can use Cross Connecting’s Schools Connect tool to discover who they are and to connect with them. 

If you don’t have time to prepare your own material for school assemblies, RE lessons, CUs/clubs, then you can use our Resources Hub to access materials that others have used at school. Cross Connecting has not produced these resources. The resources here are made by the community, for the community.

Do check out our Schools Worker Network page, where you can sign up for free to join this digital community. This will allow you to network with others across the UK just like you, whom you can learn from or contribute your experience and learnings to benefit others in a similar context to you.