Collective Worship & Assemblies
All schools must provide collective worship for all pupils, whether they are Church schools or not. The aim of collective worship, or assembly, is to develop pupils socially, morally, spiritually and culturally. The Education Reform Act, 1994 regarding collective worship still stands today. It states that collective worship "must be wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character, though not distinctive of any particular Christian denomination".
Added to this, is the requirement to promote British values as part of Social, Moral, Spiritual and Cultural education (Ofsted, September 2014, DfE, November 2014). Free schools and academies have the same requirement to provide collective worship as maintained and faith schools, as part of their funding agreement.
In practice, our assemblies include learning interesting cultural traditions from around the world and their meaning, listening to stories with a moral message and reflecting on themes such as strength, courage or loyalty. Collective worship at Aspin draws pupils’ attention to the values the school wishes to develop. Collective worship is about the growth of the person, their character and social outlook. On Mondays, we welcome visiting speakers from local churches in Knaresborough. The Knaresborough churches are a big part of our town community, running school holiday clubs and weekend events that many children from our school, both religious and non-religious attend. These speakers talk about Christian festivals or Bible stories. Speakers may invite children to pray with them, if they choose but there is expectation or direction to do so. For balance, our school-led assemblies often feature non-Christian religious festivals and beliefs as well as being studied in RE lessons.
Right of withdrawal: the right of withdrawal from collective worship stands for all parents and teachers. Parents may put in writing to the school that they do not wish for their child to be in any assemblies with a religious character, if they so wish.
Please see our assembly plans for the term below for further information.
