Involving Children in the Organisation and Planning of Collective Worship

Obviously good collective worship is worship where children are not just passive spectators but enthusiastic contributors. Do they actually do more than sing the hymns and answer questions in collective worship? More and more SIAS Inspection Reports are commenting on involving the pupils themselves in the organisation and provision or worship. Ways of doing this can include:

• Engagement or evoking a response. Setting a mood and creating a worshipful atmosphere is an important part of collective worship. Talk with pupils about the effectiveness of music and allow older children to be involved in the selection process.
• When telling stories as part of collective worship do not follow up with information seeking questions but encourage children to empathise with the characters e.g. "How do you feel about what happened in this story?" "Were you like *** in the story?" "Does the story remind you of anything in your own life?"
• If you are sure you can "get them back again" (!) give the children a few moments to allow them to talk with their neighbours about what they thought of the story and its meaning.
• Allow time for quiet reflection and/or silent prayer on the theme of the story. (You may like to brainstorm possible prayers first.)
• Have an established procedure for allowing children to contribute their personal prayer needs to the time of worship. Some examples include;
• a prayer tree or plant (real or man-made) where children leave their topics for intercession written on leaf shapes on the tree;
• individual classes or year groups have a set day of the week on which they can recommend the topics for prayer;
• a book of prayers is kept in which pupils can write prayers which will be used in worship.
• Even if the worship is not class-led children may occasionally read their own prose or poetry, perform drama or mime, make music etc.
• Frequently schools are asked how they are assessing collective worship. Why not hand this over to your pupils for a time and ask them to record short comments on the acts of worship? An illuminating and thought-provoking experience!

See also the section on liturgy in chursch schools for further ideas for involving children in the leading of collective worship.

The two forms of assembly which make most use of the pupils' talents are the "Good Work Assembly" and the class led "Show and Tell". On these special occasions the question needs to be asked "Are these assemblies or collective worship?" It is very easy for these activities to turn into displays of work; such assemblies are important sharing times and contribute to the building-up of the school community, but it is important to be certain that some of the elements of worship are present. Many such assemblies can be reconfigured as acts of collective worship given time and thought. (Note: The same problem arises with hymn practices; are they merely music lessons or can they become vehicles for Christian teaching?)

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