Slide 2
Impact of Collective Worship
Provision: In developing collective worship that is inclusive, invitational and inspiring the school community needs to evaluate the extent to which worship? (Actions taken):
Our Curriculum of Grace is designed with God at the centre
Impact: How do you know it is working?
Hard data demonstrates that outcomes are good. Soft data, including parental feedback and collective worship show that our children and through them, parents, have a good knowledge of how to have a relationship with God
| Actions taken Prayer – We acknowledge that everyone prays in a different way. We ask children to be still and listen to God. Prayer is both planned and spontaneous. The school chaplain and other school members will model praying about a problem. We will frequently pray in a conflict situation to resolve it. Collective worship – daily worship opportunities are planned across the school. Worship log – we record collective worship on the log and highlight areas that arose. Worship calendar – the worship calendar allows us to be responsive to upcoming events of our faith and others. Prayer areas – the introduction and monitoring of prayer areas within each classroom. There is a prayer rota which includes our Prayer Hand which specifies different colours for different aspects of praying. Children are encouraged to pray for different reasons e.g Thankfulness, Praying for others, Praying for someone you love, Praying for Self, Praying to say sorry and Praying for Leaders. | Impact We are creating that expectation that God will speak to you but you need to listen. We pray before lunch and at the end of the day and we pray in all forms of worship. We have our prayer tree opportunities in the Foyer and also the prayer tree in school. We encourage our parents and children to have an active prayer life. Each class has a dedicated prayer area that allows children to have the space to reflect and take time to pray in their own way. These prayer areas include resources to help children to pray, prayer bowls, prayer trees and crosses. There are naturally times during the year where it feels appropriate to pray. These may not be planned experiences but will be reflective of events happening in the news or events that are personally affecting children in our classes. We feel that it is important to take these spontaneous opportunities to pray so that we are reacting to situations that arise in a way that is fitting of our school ethos and beliefs. Praying at school has taken a more informal approach during the years. The way in which we build towards prayers can take on a formal tone but in more recent years we are encouraging children to pray in a way that feels comfortable to them. This may include a more formal approach of having eyes closes and hands together or a less formal approach where children might reach their arms out and look up. Whether this is to be deemed formal or informal, we encourage children to pray in their own way. We largely pray indoors during collective worship but find ourselves in a very blessed position where we also have an outdoor prayer area. We are able to use many of our indoor spaces to pray such as prayer areas and by the prayer tree and we maximise opportunities to pray outdoors when conducting prayer spaces. |
| Actions taken Vicar’s assembly – we have weekly assemblies that are taken by the Vicar and open to parent visitors. Visiting speakers – this includes the Korean prayer group, Buddhist monks and a member of Worsley Mesnes Mosque. Staff reflection – we hold regular staff meetings that allow staff to reflect and pray. | Impact Children within our school are offered a variety of worship experiences. We conduct whole school worship, class based worship and Vicar’s assembly. We use a range of resources to support worship such as online resources, the big frieze, children’s bibles and faith texts. We invite visitors to our school to join in with worship such as Mr Hayes coming to deliver faith assemblies, Buddhist monks to help build understanding, the Korean prayer group came to pray with the children. We hold regular staff reflection meetings that are led by the Vicar. It allows staff to reflect on current circumstances and pray in silence, with music and using stories. We have very strong church-school links. We work closely with our church to ensure that children are attending services within school time when they may not be able to do so in their own time. We celebrate Harvest, Christmas, Easter and Lent with church as a school and participate in celebration events with the church such as the service of dedication and the end of year celebration. |
| Actions taken Worship calendar – the worship calendar allows us to be responsive to upcoming events of our faith and others. Heartsmart – relevant worship that promotes loving and look after yourself. CPD – keeping in touch days for the RE lead support current and relevant teachings. | Impact Our worship assemblies are age-appropriate and engaging. We consider the learning styles of all children and this ensure that there are elements within each assembly that would appeal to all such as music, drama and creativity. We increasingly use technology to support worship and use up to date resources such as Heartsmart. Using our worship calendar we ensure that biblical content is linked to worship in a way that it supports worship. Our curriculum allows children to hear about and explore the teachings of Jesus within their lessons and within class-based worship. We develop pupils’ understanding of the trinity by exploring this in detail within Vicar’s assembly. Within Early Years and KS1 we explain the Lord’s prayer so that children have a deeper understanding of the prayer and the meaning of ‘the father, the son and the holy spirit’. |
| Actions taken Ethos group – representatives from each KS2 class develop ideas that support the curriculum. God Squad – shared discussions that are faith orientated feed into planning for collective worship. GRACE – introduction of the curriculum of GRACE to promote our core values. CPD/JPD – RE lessons are modelled by the Vicar and School Chaplain to develop quality teaching. | Impact Our ethos and faith pupil group encourages children to engage in the planning and design of collective worship. Children work with adults to share ideas and have an input in the areas that are discussed. Additionally, the God Squad group builds opportunities for spontaneous ideas to come to fruition within our assemblies. Adults plan around our curriculum of GRACE – God, Resilience, Aspiration, Core Purpose and Engagement. Beyond this, the curriculum is designed by our faith team in school and taken forward by teachers supported by resources introduced by the faith team and the worship a calendar. CPD is largely undertaken in-house. We explore JPD opportunities so that staff are working together to develop collective worship in a way that is true to the ethos of our school. Our RE lead, regularly keeps up to date on current developments at the ‘keeping in touch’ training. Teachers that are new to our school undertake training that supports staff who are new to church schools. Our deputy headteacher is currently undertaking the CENPQH. |
| Actions taken Vicar’s assembly – we have weekly assemblies that are taken by the Vicar and open to parent visitors. Wellspring – we greatly support the running of Wellspring within our school and the church hall. Events – we join church for key events such as the Nativity, Ash Wednesday and the Easter experience and the Christmas Experience. | Impact Our links with the church are strong. We build strong church community partnerships that allow us to bring church into school as much as possible. We hold a Vicar’s Assembly each week in school and are greatly supportive of Wellspring which is held on the school grounds. We take children to church to participate in worship at key moments during the year as outlined in the worship calendar. We also create opportunities to visit church in support of the curriculum such as exploring the building and grounds and participating in the Easter experience. We maintain this partnership with open communication between the church and the school. We have church governors on our governing body, we have weekly faith meetings at school that include SLT, the Vicar and School Chaplain and we share community opportunities such as Wellspring where we are able to have open communication that strengthens our partnership. |
| To discuss the ways that we pray with the Ethos group and the God Squad so that we are responsive to the ideas of the children and so that we are reflective as a school to the ways in which children want to pray. To ensure that staff have up to date and relevant training (inclusive of CPD and JPD) and that they have access to training that leads to improved practice. |