Collective Worship in Schools
Collective Worship legislation continues to cause a good deal of contention in schools. There are also significant difficulties in implementing daily collective worship, especially in many secondary schools.
The All Saints Trust sponsored a research project, managed by Culham, which aimed to bring together all the existing published information and research about collective worship and to present it in a published document which would be made widely available. The work was undertaken by Brian Gates and Peter Gedge at St Martin's University College Lancaster and published as Collective Worship in Schools.
An earlier series of seminar consultations had been undertaken by the National Society through the St Gabriel's Programme looking at positive approaches to collective worship. The results and conclusions were published under the title Between a Rock and a Hard Place.
During 1997 three conferences were held on collective worship, jointly funded by the All Saints and St Gabriel's Trusts.
The conferences explored the extent to which there might be a broad consensus on the sort of collective worship which is educationally appropriate and practical for the future. They also considered what change, if any, might be required to the present statutory framework. Members of the conferences included delegates from the churches and other faith communities, the teaching profession and educational organisations.
Conference chair: Professor Desmond Rea, Chairman of the Northern Ireland
Council for Curriculum Examinations and Assessment.
Sponsors: The RE council for England and Wales, the National Association
of Standing Advisory Councils on RE, and the Interfaith Network.
Findings from the conferences have been published in a document entitled 'Collective Worship Reviewed': £8.50 from CE.
February 2004. The 'Collective Worship Reviewed' report is available online in both HTML and PDF format.
A background document by the RE Council of England and Wales provides information about the development of Collective Worship since the 1944 Education Act. 'Collective Worship in Schools', 1996. Price £8.50 available from CE. See also 'Between a Rock and a Hard Place' by Alan Brown, published by the National Society, Church House, London SW1P 3NZ.