Chaplaincy
Slough and Eton Church of England Business & Enterprise College welcomes our School Chaplain
The Reverend Andrew Wickens
Team Vicar and School Chaplain
Slough & Eton Business and Enterprise College (three days per week, term time)
Parish of Upton-cum-Chalvey - St Peter’s Chalvey (two days per week plus Sunday)
Fr Andrew Wickens serves as Chaplain at Slough & Eton Business and Enterprise College. He is also a Church of England Vicar locally in Chalvey at St Peter's Church.
The chaplaincy helps support the Church of England's Vision for Education in the school to offer "life in all its fullness." (John 10:10)
The role of the chaplain is to support the spiritual, cultural, social and moral development of all students through participating in leading collective worship, supporting religious education and developing opportunities for spiritual reflection for pupils of all faiths and none. The chaplain is also available for pastoral conversations for students and for staff alike.
Slough is a spiritual town, with one of the highest percentages of religious affiliation per capita in the UK. It comprises of people from a wide variety of deeply committed faith backgrounds, who come from many different cultures and diverse national backgrounds.
The chaplaincy aims to live and tell the story of God within our spiritually diverse and vibrant school and the wider community context of Slough.
The Chaplaincy seeks:
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to ensure our students who wish to observe or explore faith can do so, and that their religious beliefs are respected, ensuring that they have access to appropriate materials (literature, artefacts) and resources.
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To ensure that students of all traditions are offered equal opportunities to practise their faith.
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To create an environment where our students can discover and practise their faith/religion as well as develop and strengthen their character and with wider communities.
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To arrange and lead regular opportunities for Christian worship/meditation, study and prayer appropriate for students and staff.
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To develop opportunities for the wider community to engage with major faith celebrations such as Christmas, Easter, Diwali, Eid etc.
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To create an environment where the integrity of all faiths is recognised through the promotion of mutual respect, peace, and co-operation.
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To facilitate inter-faith dialogue within Slough & Eton through e.g., inter-faith festivals, inter-faith discussion groups.
Our vision
The vision of this chaplaincy role is to live and tell the Story of God within this spiritually diverse and vibrant school and community context of Slough.
Slough is a spiritual town, with one of the highest percentages of religious affiliation per capita in the UK. It comprises of people from a wide variety of deeply committed faith backgrounds, who come from many different cultures and diverse national backgrounds.
The Chaplaincy will support the Church of England’s Vision for Education in the school to offer “life in all its fullness” (John 10:10) to everyone in this spiritually and culturally diverse and vibrant school community. This will largely be delivered through high quality pastoral and spiritual care for all, and by being the ‘public face of God’ for the school community.
It’s good when faith communities across Slough are able to work well together to be a cohesive community. Just as we seek to be in the academy.
In my role as Chaplain at Slough & Eton I’ve begun fostering links between different places of worship in our town. I was delighted to be received at Jamia Masjid & Islamic Centre (on Stoke Poges Lane) by Imam Abdul Jabbar Alvi. As well as receiving a tour of the mosque, we were able to discuss together how we might work together from our different traditions in future.
Imam Abdul Jabbar Alvi requested likewise to visit St Peter’s Church in Chalvey where I had the privilege of interpreting the church as a place of Christian worship for him.
