Ending Christian assembly: let’s open our eyes to the value of collective worship in schools
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By Brian Gates, University of Cumbria
Challenges from parents and teachers to the law requiring an act of collective worship in schools are not new. Now the National Governors' Association has called for Christian assemblies in non-religious state schools to be scrapped.
But while the time is ripe for a re-engagement with the law, ironically, collective worship is important to the current debate about British values in education.
Collective worship can be a formative learning experience for both British and global values. It can ramify across a whole school curriculum and, when accompanied by the critical intelligence promoted by good religious education, contribute hugely to moral discernment.
“Worship” (or worthship) is all about “attributing worth to” something. An imaginative interpretation of collective worship is an opportunity for a school to gather round and explore the deepest beliefs and values which inform the communities that feed into it. That includes exposure to stori...
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