Worship at Runcorn All Saints CE Primary
Worship at All Saints to celebrate Easter |
Family Celebration Worship on Fridays |
Whole School 'Circle' Worship in school |
Collective Worship at Runcorn All Saints CE Primary strengthens and supports the Christian identity of our school, reaffirms our values and celebrates the contribution that each child makes to our community. Worship will reflect the variety of traditions found in the Church of England, and will recognise and follow the Christian liturgical year.
Our collective worship consists of 4 stages:
Gathering: We welcome our school community with a liturgical greeting and the gathering of our class candles.
Engaging: We have the main input of the worship. This may be a bible story, story, film clip, piece of art, drama etc.
Responding: This is an opportunity for reflection on the input. This may be through prayer, quiet reflection, discussion or an activity.
Sending: The close of our collective worship. This may be through a final message, song, prayer, music, liturgy.
The nature of Acts of Worship
Our daily act of worship should be an activity that:
- Is educational and spiritually enhancing
- Fosters a sense of community by sharing in fellowship with each other.
- Creates an atmosphere where those who wish to worship can do so.
- Introduces children to aspects of Christian worship and faith in an open and honest atmosphere.
- Encourages children to be creative, questioning and imaginative, within a Christian framework; also recognising the importance of experience, personal values and respect for the beliefs of others.
- Facilitates spiritual growth, enabling children to become true to themselves and others.
- Explores a relationship with God in Jesus Christ.
- Allows children to reflect on values that are of a broadly Anglican Christian tradition, whilst embracing the validity and importance of other Christian denominations, religions and belief systems.
- Allows children to consider spiritual and moral issues and, through reflection, raise awareness of the ultimate questions of life relating to matters of faith.
- Allows children to reflect on their own beliefs.
- Allows children to deepen and widen the experience of those of ‘faith’ and encourage those of ‘little or no formal faith’ so that they begin to feel for themselves something of what it means to worship.
- Allows children to develop an enquiring mind and express and explore their own views openly and honestly, with respect for the views of others.
- Allows children to develop a community spirit, a common ethos and shared values.
- Allows children to foster an awareness of the world around them and a sense of their place within it
- Allows children to develop a respect for and an understanding of different beliefs
- Allows children to develop a sense of sharing and belonging through different groups of the community coming together.
The Organisation of Collective Worship
The daily Christian act of worship is central to our ethos and is held daily with all children coming together as a school community either in our school hall or in All Saints Church.
Monday - Whole School Worship in the school hall
Tuesday - Class Worship
Wednesday - Songs of Praise
Thursday - Picture News Worship
Friday - Family Celebration worship in the church
Class Worship
Our class worship on a Tuesday enables pupils to explore Monday's worship in more depth. It enables the children to enquire, to explore further and to express thier views in a smaller context. It gives them time to look inwards at how they are effected as well as looking outwards to what they can take forward into their daily lives.
Picture News
At Runcorn All Saints CE Primary School we understand the importance of giving our children opportunity to learn about our world, develop independence, resilience, respect and unlock their own drive and passion for learning.
We believe in giving children a voice and encouraging them to use it to impact things they are inspired by or feel passionately about. Picture News is a fantastic weekly resource which enables children to think about current events, participate in debates and share their views and opinions. Each week the worship contains a British Value focus, numerous resources to talk about as well as a child friendly newspaper.
Teaching the news not only provides great content and stimulus and grips children's attention, it is also something that the children can impact. It is current, happening now and so their voice is given meaning and purpose. It is our world and we all matter.