The Anglican Tradition

When planning collective worship, Church Schools will want to be aware of their Anglican Foundation and consider how this can contribute to the assembly provision - without reproducing something inappropriate to the children's age and experience such as a version of KS1 Evensong!:

The following may be described as shared Christian elements of collective worship:

• Using the Bible, either as a source book, or as an inspiration for themes and stories
• Observing the cycle of the Church's Year - Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, Saints Days
• Learning and saying traditional prayers from a number of sources, in particular the Lord's Prayer and the Grace
• Singing a wide variety of hymns, from traditional to rap
• Using Christian symbols in worship and reflecting on their meaning e.g. cross, crucifix, bread and wine
• The use of prayer, silence and reflection
• Using Psalms with simple responses

Whilst these are more distinctively Anglican:

• Using prayers from Common Worship
• Using Anglican sentences and responses e.g.
  • The Lord is here / His Spirit is with us
  • Peace be with you/ and also with you
  • Go in peace to love and serve the Lord / In the name of Christ, Amen
• Using Collects as a focus for worship
• Eucharists
• Encouraging links with the worship of the local parish church

The Anglican Church is a worldwide church with a strong commitment to ecumenism, so Church of England schools should also feel free to draw upon appropriate materials from other Christian churches in their collective worship, as well as inviting visitors from other churches to lead collective worship on occasions.

Contents

1. What is worship?
2. Collective Worship and the law
3. The Anglican Tradition
4. The Aims of Collective Worship
5. The Policy
6. Ways of planning and recording
7. Planning Issues
8. Collective worship ideas and support on the world wide web
9. Asking Visitors to lead worship
10. Guidelines to be given to Visitors to lead worship
11. Are Assembly and Collective worship the same thing?
12. Themes and schemes for planning collective worship
13. Bible stories for use with collective worship themes
14. Involving pupils in Collective worship

Document Downloads

• Collective Worship in Church Schools