Collective Worship

Collective Worship occupies an important and unique place within the life of St Mark’s CofE Primary School. It’s a key way to realise our vision of “Growing and Learning Together In God’s Love”.

It provides an opportunity for members of the school community to pause from activity, to gather together, to learn about and reflect upon the Christian beliefs and values which bind the school community together. Our aim through worship is to educate our children and make them aware of what it means to be a community committed to serving and caring for each other, God and our environment.
We aim:

to give opportunities to enable pupils to develop sensitivity and a sense of wonder, awe and mystery for the material and spiritual world;
to provide opportunities for celebrating times of success or joy and grieving at times of sadness or sorrow;
to help pupils understand their place in the world, and the positive impact they can have in the world.
to affirm the equality of each individual in God’s sight, regardless of gender, ethnicity, physical or mental ability;
to enable pupils to reflect upon and learn from their own experiences and the experiences of others;
to give pupils the experience of being still or silent and provide the opportunity for prayer;
to offer worship which will include all children, whilst recognising parental right of withdrawal;
to ensure that worship is in accordance with the foundation and principles of the Church of England;

Our methods for developing collective worship are:

to create an atmosphere that will encourage worship and reflection;
to ensure that approaches and materials used are appropriate to a range of ages, abilities, aptitudes and interests;
to use a wide variety of media including song, story, drama, dance, music and poetry;
to gather in various groupings such as a whole school, key stage, year group or class group;
to take into account the children’s views and involve them in the planning of collective worship;
to enable worship to be led by both adults and children;
to invite the clergy and lay leaders into school regularly to lead worship and to help with planning;
to invite a wide variety of visitors into school to take a lead or share in our collective worship;
to plan and record a cycle of themes based on Christian values and teaching;
to monitor and evaluate the outcomes through teacher observation, pupil feedback and parental feedback on the quality of the school’s ethos and communal relationships.

Across the week, collective worship is typically developed as: