Collective Worship

Our daily acts of collective worship play a vital role in the life of our school as this is where we come together and share what is important.  As St James is a Church of England school, the acts of worship are mainly Christian, although the beliefs and customs of other religions are respected and valued and children from other faiths are welcome in the school.

Collective worship is led weekly by Chris Sale (Youth and Community Regeneration Co-ordinator from St James Church), by staff or children from the school. The CREW (Collective Worship monitors) help to prepare and deliver collective worship every day. We often have a Bible story or look at a topic from the news which we can think more about. It is a time to reflect together upon the Bible and life in our Church of England school. Each school term has a different collective worship theme, which are linked to our Christian values and liturgical calendar.

We visit the church for services throughout the year and parents are welcome to join us on those occasions. We also love to celebrate achievement so once a week we have our whole school ‘Achiever Assembly’. This is a time where parents and visitors can also join with us in our collective worship as well as in celebrating what individuals have done well.

Parents have the right to withdraw their child from collective worship. If a parent wishes to consider this option, the Head Teacher should be approached.

Our prayers encourage self-reflection and empathy within the broad Christian principles the school follows. We endeavour to link our prayers to contemporary events and issues that are relevant to the children and the lives they lead. We also use traditional prayers and prayers that celebrate a variety of religious events throughout the calendar year.

There are reflection areas in each classroom and prayer areas throughout other parts of school which are available for the children to use whenever they wish to.

For more information and to read our Collective Worhsip Policy, please visit our policy section.

Prayers

Here is our school prayer:

Dear God,

Let us love and let us care
Let our community spirit thrive
With love for God and love for other people
Let all our hearts come together
To make our school the best it can be

Amen