Collective Worship at Preston Candover CE Primary School

Collective Worship is an important part of daily life at our school. It brings us together as a school community to learn about, and reflect upon, Christian beliefs and values as well as offering us an opportunity to pause within our busy lives. It draws on a variety of sources including stories, reading, hymns or songs, drama and imagery. It provides a time of reflection to allow children to respond personally, perhaps through a time of silence. However, it also acknowledges and enables children to make a personal choice of reverence, prayer or response to God.

In our school, Collective Worship is led by staff, children and at times by visitors from local churches and is attended by children and adults.

Open the Book

We continue to learn from the ‘Open the Book’ team of parishioners who tell Bible Stories through drama, which the children greatly enjoy and benefit from.

Collective Worship is usually organised as follows every week:

Monday: Whole school vision and values worship with the Headteacher. Celebrating achievements with values awards

Tuesday: Whole school worship with Assistant Headteacher or the 'Open the Book' team

Wednesday: Class worship with a focus on Picture News and/or spirituality led by class teachers

Thursday: Phase worship led by class teachers

Friday: Whole school singing worship led by Senior Teacher

We want our children to learn and experience what it means to worship. We acknowledge that each one of us, whether child or adult, is travelling our own spiritual journey. We offer the opportunity to find a point of peace and quiet in the day where we can explore ideas, and learn from the examples of Christian teachings and aspects of other faiths and cultures how we can best live our lives. We use different parts of our school environment to help with this, including prayer spaces that we have created. Please see Prayer Spaces page for more information about these.

​​Our worship is inclusive and delivered so everyone present feels included, whilst respecting the integrity of the different families and backgrounds we serve. The themes we cover supplement RE teaching and include our vision, values and key times and celebrations within the Christian calendar. 

Worship Leaders

We have worship leaders in our school who take an active role in the monitoring and delivery of Collective Worship in our school.

The Collective Worship Team meet regularly throughout the year. They receive training and support but they also plan and lead particular Collective Worships. They will be supporting and leading key Christian celebrations including our Harvest, Christmas and Easter services as well as leading other important times of celebration/reflection such as Remembrance. 

School Prayer

We have our school prayer that is based on our core Christian Values: