In Church of England schools, collective worship should be inclusive of pupils and staff of all faiths and beliefs or none, invitational where all are invited, not required, to participate, and inspiring all to reflect on their lives and the world, wherever they may be on their journey of faith and belief.
Latest Collective Worship Resources
Advent Calendars 2023 You will find our Advent Calendars and the sneaky previews for teachers in our Advent and Christmas section below.
These documents change over time, so do keep revisiting to see what’s new:
Latest available Collective Worship Materials - scripts and slides will be added a couple of weeks before you need them.
Autumn Term 2023 | Moses – ‘Are we nearly there yet?!!!’
This term, we are reflecting on the story of Moses and journeying with him as he leads God’s people from Egypt and to the Promised Land. At the beginning of a new school year, it is always good to be back together as a community, and so we are using the story of Moses to help us to reflect on some important ideas from this story about being community together and about God, who looked after them. These stories can be found in the Bible, the Torah and the Qur’an, recognising Moses as a prophet and leader in all three of these Abrahamic traditions: these stories often generate some challenging questions about judgement and justice (especially from older pupils), so in these collective worship resources we choose to emphasise the positive messages and outcomes e.g. God seeing and responding to the cruel treatment of the people, and being with his people.
Spring Term 2024 - 'Wise Words'
This term, we begin a series of themes based on wise words – all of them from the Bible, all of them ancient advice about how to live, but in our modern world, they often sound surprisingly up to date! We link this ancient wisdom to stories from across the world and across cultures in the first half of the term, and then after half term, connect into the life and stories of Jesus in the weeks leading up to Easter.
The overview for the term is in the resources above. We will add the weekly scripts and slides as we complete them.
To support schools, we have written and curated prayer and worship resources for use at festivals and seasons throughout the year.
We offer training for school staff responsible for planning and leading collective worship in their school. This includes:
- A regular Collective Worship Leaders' Briefing - an online session to receive updates about new resources and thinking in school collective worship.
- Training for clergy and church visitors ‘Top Tips for Leading a Primary Assembly’.
- Courses, staff meeting and inset days to help schools developing aspects of spiritual development collective worship
Church of England Education Office Guidance
Spiritual development is about enabling all in the school community - pupils and adults - to live life in all its fullness; recognising that humans are made up of body, mind and spirit.
It is not about making pupils ‘religious’ but creating opportunities for the pupils to reflect on the big issues. Spiritual development should be threaded through the life of the school and across the whole curriculum.
This video is a useful introduction