Legally there has to be some form of daily collective worship in schools and this takes the form of assemblies in the majority of schools.
There are various regulations that you can look at which will tell you the % of Christian content etc but the bottom line is that an assembly must be done every day.
To sum up, the main points are as follows:
- the head teacher is responsible for arranging daily collective worship (assembly);
- daily collective worship must be wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character but only 51 per cent need be identifiably ‘Christian’ with the remaining 49 per cent reflecting other faiths or ‘interests’ over the course of a year;
- it can happen at any time of the school day and should generally happen on the school premises;
- parents can withdraw children from assemblies;
- teachers may withdraw from assemblies;
- the school’s annual prospectus should carry information about collective worship and how parents may withdraw their children from it;
- the above apply to state community schools. Church or faith-based schools will have their own way of applying the law within their specific context.
With the requirement for so many assemblies it becomes obvious that the same few people are not going to take ALL the assemblies. If you are a teacher in a large school then you can breathe a sigh of relief as you wont be asked to do so many in a year – however in small schools – well colleagues you better get organised because you are at some time going to be asked!
However the dice fall; assemblies will loom large – but its not a big deal….no really its not that difficult so don’t let it worry you!
Lets start with a type of assembly that occurs in some schools quite regularly….
Class Assemblies in front of the whole school:
I am going to be quite honest here and say that these are a bit of a pain to have to do and can happen every term in some schools. They are usually timetabled in for a set day every week with your class taking the whole assembly. So how should you approach these type of assembly?
Now here’s a small aside…in some schools; class assemblies can get very competitive – with teachers concocting all singing and dancing assemblies that are not related to the topic at all. They will design all sorts of things including, at times, costumes and it becomes a sort of competition! DON’T let this affect you or be drawn into this game…stick with what your class is doing as a topic and go with that.
First of all you need to start thinking about your assembly 3 weeks ahead of the date – and to make things a little easier try to plan things around what your are currently doing in class – pick the most interesting subject or subjects around your topic and think about what work you have done that could be used.
So for instance if your topic is say ” forces” then you perhaps would not show your maths work on weighing but the science work you have done with slides and friction would be great to show and the art work designing kites would also look great…..see what I mean?
Once you have decided the bare outline then you have to break it down into sections…the following gives you some idea of the things to think about…
- Welcome and introduction
- Description of whatever you are showing….experiment / work etc
- (For some smaller work copy onto an overhead or use the interactive screen to show)
- Experiment or Art work description and what the class was finding out, asking or experimenting
- What you found out…
- A look at work (make sure its big and easy to see or has been projected)
- Summary
- Choose a song for whole school to sing (ask Y6 monitors to sort this out for you and choose one everybody knows)
- Write a simple prayer
- Thank you
Next – get organised! Choose your readers and make sure these are children who won’t get fazed when standing in front of the school and also who can speak loudly enough to be heard! (If you have a sound system and microphones then that gets over that problem).
Print out what they have to say and mount it on a piece of card (there’s nothing worse than children with scrappy bits of paper!)
You personally will need a copy of the whole script and proceedings – a list of who says what and when, who is holding work to show and where everyone stands . Also make sure you have a list of props you need!
Practice – yes you do need to practice! Make sure that all the children in your class are involved. Either in the reading, showing of work or an experiment….be creative if you have a large class but make sure everyone does something!
In the last couple of days before the assembly grab some Hall time to practice so that you can arrange things as they will be on the day. Make sure your children know where to stand, who speaks and when and what their job is. If you need seating use either benches or arrange to take your class chairs down before the assembly starts.
In the assembly:
Depending on the age of your children you will have more or less input into this assembly. For younger children it will more than likely be you that says “good morning” and introduces the assembly. Be prepared also to help out with any children who stumble over words or to pitch in if a child is overcome with “stage fright”. It is you, as the teacher who will be an “active ringmaster” for the whole assembly….but no- one will mind.
For older children you should, hopefully get an easier ride! On a given signal from you your good morning / introduction child will start the assembly and you can monitor its progression on your sheet – intervening only when necessary. Of course if anything breaks down you will simply step up to help out or explain something a little better.
Never be afraid to intervene if necessary – do it in a loud and clear voice and if you need to ask your class to stop for a moment then do so – put things back on track and then allow things to carry on. Don’t sit quietly while everything falls to pieces – take action if you need to!
Once the assembly has finished the HT or DH will look your way to see if all is finished – just give them a nod and they will step up to say a thank you and comment on how good it was….happy days. If its all gone well then tell the children how great they have been and perhaps give them an extra 5 minutes playtime – now you can sit back until it all rolls round again!