Collective Worship
What is Collective worship?
Collective worship is the unique heartbeat of a Church school and is offered as part of a wider opportunity for pupils and adults to encounter faith by engaging in conversations about God, both as individuals and together.
Collective worship gives pupils and school staff the opportunity to:
- Engage in an act of community.
- Express praise and thanksgiving to God.
- Be still and reflect.
- Explore the big questions of life and respond to national events.
- Foster respect and deepen spiritual awareness.
- Reflect on the character of God and on the teachings of Christ.
- Affirm Christian values and attitudes.
- Share each other’s joys and challenges.
- Celebrate special times in the Christian calendar.
At St Giles and St George’s C of E Academy Collective worship takes many different forms:
- Daily worship – this takes place each morning after the children’s arrival in school and is either as a whole school a key stage or individual classes. This gives us all the opportunity to engage together at the start of our busy day.
- Prayer Garden activities – Our Worship Council organise worship activities in our prayer garden and all children access these throughout the week.
- Monthly All age worship At St Giles’ church- the school regularly takes part in All age worship through drama, prayers and reading.
- Monthly GLOW worship with children and parents at St Giles’ church – Once a month a different class invites their parents to join them in God Loves Our Worship where we share bible stories, prayers and activities with our wider parish community.
Collective Worship at St Giles’ and St George’s Academy
Annual plan for Worship 2022-2023
What is Worship Council?
Worship Council is led by Mrs Wright and is a group of children from Years 3 – 6. We meet weekly and share our religious views with one another in a supportive, caring and inclusive environment. Whilst sharing our views, we respect each other’s Religious beliefs and opinions.
What do we do?
We work together to help promote our core Christian Values, with the aim of making a difference both to the school and the wider community. We support with weekly worships and lead and run a rota of worship activities for all of the children in school in a prayer garden.
Throughout the past 2 years we have helped to run the following events:
-Lead worship sessions for our indiviudal classes and for the whole school
-Prepare and lead worship linked to Chrisitianty in countries across the world for Newcastle schools
-Created a range of prayer activities to share with children in our school prayer garden
-Supported with All Age worship at St Giles’ church
-Suggested and completed workshops around Pentecost, Advent and Lent at St George’s church
How do we make a difference?
Our biggest achievements so far have been to:
- Create, prepare and lead prayer garden sessions for all of classes within the school
- Participate in training from the Diocese and Rev Josh to be able to lead our own worship sessions and
- Take part in a Newcastle schools group to lead a worship based on Christianity in countries around the world
Children leading Worship- Holy Week
Together we help everyone and follow our school motto:
“As God’s children we aspire, believe and achieve to be the very best we can be.”
HE SET MY FEET ON A ROCK AND GAVE ME A FIRM PLACE TO STAND (PSALM 40 V. 2)