Collective Worship

Collective Worship at Dagnall C of E School is a special and cherished time where our school community can take time from their busy day to come together to reflect, question and pray. Our collective worships are inclusive for all children and staff, whether of religious belief or not. Children are invited to engage with the worship in the most fitting way for them; some children love to worship by helping to act out stories, join in songs and interact with peers, whilst other children prefer quiet contemplation and thoughtful silence. We aim to cater for al spiritual styles when worshiping over time. Therefore, we offer invitational worship for children to engage in at their own chosen level. Children particularly like leading their own collective worships and inviting parents in to take part each term. Wherever possible we aim for our Collective Worship to inspire children to want to make a change for the better. Our children, surrounded by God's beautiful countryside, are strong advocates of nature and feel impassioned to protect the world for future generations. Collective Worship often leads to requests from the children to raise money for people or animals in need or setting up pupil-led extra curricular clubs to help to protect God's little creatures.

Structuring Worship

Each collective worship follows a GATHER, LEARN, RESPOND, LEAVE structure:

Connecting Worship

We follow weekly liturgical themes which help our prayer leaders to explore a topic in more depth over the week. We aim for each worship session to link and build on from the one before.

An example weekly timetable of worship

Mondays: Mrs Fleet leads whole school collective worship to introduce our weekly liturgical theme. This may include telling readings or stories from the bible or exploring Jesus' teachings.

Tuesdays: Teachers lead whole school worship to look in more depth at the liturgical theme, unpicking bible meanings to explore 'What might this mean for a Christian?' 

Wednesdays: Teachers lead whole school worship to give the weekly liturgical theme a school-based context to explore 'What might this mean for us at Dagnall C of E school?' 

Thursdays: Children have time to reflect on the weekly liturgical theme, hold class discussions or take part in a spiritual activity during a collective worship in classrooms or the spiritual garden.

Fridays: Mrs Fleet leads our 'Share and Shine' collective worship with an opportunity to reflect on the liturgical theme and link to our successes from the week.

We are lucky to have visits from guest speakers such as Reverend Joy, Chris Lane and Andrew Masters who regularly come in to lead collective worship. Parents are warmly welcomed to take part too and we often have parents who come in to talk to the children about their beliefs and celebrations during class collective worships. If you would like to help to enhance our worship, please do let us know!