Planning Issues

Collective worship should be a special occasion, valued by teachers and pupils alike. There are several issues which need to be considered as having a bearing upon the atmosphere of the worship. It is worth reviewing the school's current practice under these headings:

Venue In most schools the choice of room for worship lies between the hall, or remaining in the classroom with smaller groups. With class-based worship, it is important that efforts are made to differentiate between the time for worship and the other activities of the classroom, perhaps by the use of a special collective worship corner or a particular layout of the classroom.

Preparing for worship Whichever room is used for collective worship it is likely to be employed for other purposes. How does the school arrange the room to facilitate the movement into worship? The use of a focal point helps to draw pupils' attention. This may be a particular table, seat or screen. The object of attention may be something fixed such as a standing cross, flowers or a candle, or may vary according to the worship theme. Noticeboards in line with the focal point may be used for displays which will support and enhance the worship experience.

Seating It is customary to seat pupils in classes, either in lines or in a horseshoe shape. Schools may like to experiment with allowing children to sit in friendship groups or in "family" groupings which cross the age ranges. This is best done by creating artificial families containing one child from each year group - older children taking responsibility for the younger ones. This arrangement has the advantage that Year 6 are not pushed to the back of the room where they are permanently distanced from the collective worship leader.

Attendance at Worship

• Pupils. Parents have the right to withdraw their children from collective worship, otherwise all pupils should attend. Legally teachers cannot withdraw children from the worship for e.g. remedial work; a school which does so is failing to meet the requirements of the law. Parents should not be asked to withdraw their children on e.g. "Tuesdays only" for other activities, as the reason for a pupil's withdrawal from collective worship has to be "on religious grounds".
• Staff. Staff cannot be compelled to attend collective worship and in some schools assembly is seen as non-contact time for the teachers. If this is the case in your school a number of questions need to be asked. If collective worship is seen as a valuable time for community building, then should not all members of the school community be present? Do you wish to give the impression that worship is something adults grow out of but subject children to? If your worship is an integral part of the school's life and connected with the curriculum should not all staff know what has been going on in assembly? How can collective worship be properly monitored and assessed if the worship provider is the only adult present? Is it right that only one adult should look after the whole school - what happens in an emergency? If teachers feel they need to withdraw from the collective worship on religious grounds is the school actually meeting the criterion that worship should be inclusive not exclusive?

It is also good to involve the wider community in the life of the school. It is a positive step to invite parents, governors, local religious leaders, the School's ancillary staff and local people in general to join the school's collective worship on a regular basis. This strengthens the idea of worship as a unifying and cohesive force.

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