Friday February 5

Looking Back: Sunday School Experiment

Published in 1966, the report of a new style of Sunday School which originated in Alloa and excited interest worldwide.

SUCCESS OF AN EXPERIMENT

ALLOA PLAN CATCHES ON

A Sunday School training plan which began in Alloa two years ago is being tried in several parts of the world. Latest report comes from Australia.

Orange, New South Wales. Was the place, and the time October 1965. An elder handed his minister a copy of Life and Work. More usually ministers are seeking to foist Church literature on their lay-men. But it was a copy of Life and Work for May 1964 that the elder carried and he wanted his minister to enquire about the Four Ways Sunday School Plan by the Rev. P. P. Brodie, St Mungo’s, Alloa, who had himself devised this fresh approach to Sunday School Work.

Flexible Method

The essence of the scheme is three-fold. (1) It has a flexible method whereby classes rotate monthly through four different subject departments: (a) Biblical Geography, (b) Biblical History, (c) Christ and (d) His Church and Worship. Teachers specialise in these different approaches and have thereby only eight lessons to prepare in a session.

(2) Books and work-books are provided for the children to supplement the lessons to take home for study. (3) The course of sixty-four lessons written by Mr. Brodie, who has grass-roots acquaintance with many different Sunday Schools, has provided a curriculum wider in scope, more connected and comprehensive than many, and essentially practical. The lessons are available in duplicated form.

Since the appearance of that article 85 Schools in Scotland and England, one or two in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa have put the plan into operation and half as many again are preparing to operate in 1966. Two editions of an illustrated booklet The Four Ways Plan have been called for. (Church of Scotland Bookshops 2s.)

The Rev Dr Peter Brodie went on to be Moderator of the General Assembly in 1978.

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