SACRE Collective Worship Guidance

Appendix 4: Classroom Collective Worship

As Primary schools have to timetable daily dedicated blocked time for Literacy and Numeracy for all pupils, it is an important priority for schools to look afresh at how they organise the school day and make best use of the time available to them so that they can find enough time to meet the requirements of the law, maintain the provision of a broad and balanced curriculum and meet the needs of all their pupils.

Lambeth SACRE believes that schools should concentrate on organising short, quality acts of collective worship. For many Primary schools the provision of collective worship in the classroom for at least one day every week is one way to help them to do this.

Classroom collective worship can also be successful in Secondary schools where it can support the school's ability to provide a daily offer of collective worship for all pupils whilst providing an opportunity to explore issues of meaning and purpose within the form tutor programme.

What do you need to do before implementing this?

• All staff in the school need to agree that there are benefits to this way of organising collective worship and be prepared to support its implementation.
• Those providing the collective worship must be prepared to work within the agreed school policy on collective worship
• All classes must have someone who is willing and able to plan and deliver the collective worship time. This does not have to be the class teacher.
• Those delivering the collective worship should be offered support and training if they feel that it is necessary.

How do you implement classroom Collective Worship?

• The content should be planned in order to ensure that it develops the theme that the school has agreed for that week.
• Time should be set aside for this and a mechanism should be found ( for example by placing a notice outside each room) to ensure that disruptions and interruptions are kept to a minimum.
• A name needs to be given to the time which denotes its special nature.
• There should be a way of starting and finishing this time which enhances its atmosphere and demonstrates the value which is placed upon it.
• The pupils should have a quality experience
• All staff will need to contribute to the school's record keeping and evaluation procedure for collective worship in order to ensure full collection of date for monitoring the school's provision.

What are the potential advantages?

• Collective worship can be organised at any time during the day to meet the needs of each particular group;
• no time is lost from the timetable in travelling around the school and waiting for large groups to gather together;
• the theme for the week can be developed in a way that is most appropriate to this group by a teacher who knows them well enough to make the theme most relevant to them;
• the atmosphere can be more personal and sensitive to pupils' needs
• pupils can be taught the skills of reflection
• members of the group can be encouraged to share personal experiences and ask questions to seek clarification of issues in order to help them to relate the theme to their lives.

What are the potential disadvantages?

• Teachers may feel embarrassed if they want to opt out - schools will need to organise this with great care to be sensitive to the rights of all teachers.
• If a large proportion of staff opt out it may be too complicated to organise
• It may be difficult to find alternative arrangements for pupils whose parents withdraw them from collective worship, particularly if the whole school has collective worship timed for the same time of day.
• Slippage of time through the day may mean that the collective worship time slips out of the day altogether.
• Monitoring compliance and quality may be difficult.
• Teachers need to be very clear of what is and is not acceptable in terms of confessional approaches and anxieties regarding indoctrination.