All maintained schools must hold a daily act of collective worship (assembly), though collective worship is likely to be given a much more significant status in the life of a Church school than a community school.
Collective worship can held at any time of the day and in any grouping from a single class to the whole school. Many schools also use their local churches for special worship times.
Schools are for the education of the whole person and this includes body, mind and spirit. Worship time gives schools an opportunity to create an atmosphere and provide ‘vehicles’ for prayer and reflection for pupils to develop spiritually. There are many benefits to be gained for pupils and adults from high quality worship in any school.
Our church schools strive to make worship not only a very important part of every day but significant and relevant to our lives and our world. Our schools aims to make collective worship distinctively Christian in character but also inclusive and ‘non-confessional’ in tone.
As such we encourage everyone to attend worship and schools to make sure worship works for everyone in the school. Parents do have the right to withdraw their children from part of or all of collective worship. However, please talk to the headteacher of your school if you are considering withdrawing your child as the content of collective worship cannot be isolated and is likely to be discussed within the wider life of the school.