“Love one another as I have loved you.” - John 13:34

Introduction

Collective Worship provides a central place for the whole school community to focus on and reaffirm those distinctive and yet common values that are considered of extreme worth and importance. Values such as care, commitment, courage, forgiveness, friendship, loyalty, responsibility, sacrifice and self-worth are central to the Christian faith, as well as being common to many other world faiths and general human values.

Collective Worship gives us opportunities to deepen our spiritual understanding. It allows children to approach the ‘threshold of worship’ and, through quiet reflection, as well as lively celebration, to develop an understanding of Worship within the Christian community and to reflect and celebrate alongside people of other faiths.

Our community at The King’s School is diverse, and our Collective Worship aims to be inclusive and respectful of individual beliefs. We encourage all children to participate in Collective Worship and ensure all children feel valued as a member of The King’s School family, whatever their beliefs.

Our Worship is planned and led so that all pupils have equal opportunity to take part in Worship and to benefit from that experience. A variety of Christian songs and translations of the Bible are used from the range of Christian traditions represented in the school. A variety of multicultural material is also drawn upon encouraging engagement, tolerance and understanding.

Aims

Our aims are to enable the whole school community to:

• express praise and thanksgiving through worship of God
• reflect on the teachings of Christ
• to affirm Christian values and attitudes
• to share each other’s joys and challenges
• celebrate special times in the Christian calendar
• to foster a common Christian Ethos and shared values within The King’s School Family
• to deepen spiritual awareness, consider moral issues and explore their own beliefs
• deepen understanding of the school’s Learning Certainties (see Appendix 1)
• to create an awareness and appreciation of people of different beliefs and cultures through a nurturing culture of tolerance and acceptance of all God’s people

As a result of Collective Worship we hope to give the children of The King’s School the opportunity to:

• reflect on their own and others’ experiences
• help children to find out more about themselves
• learn more about the world in which they live
• consider the beliefs of others and how they influence people
• explore prayer
• praise God
• give opportunities to be still, quiet and reflective
• respond to stories and music
• develop a caring attitude towards self and others

Pupil’s Spiritual Development

We provide opportunities for prayer and reflection in each act of Collective Worship. Within class, we say a Grace before lunchtime and prayers at the end of the day. Our PSHE programme, JIGSAW, has an approach and ethos that develops skills, knowledge, techniques and mindfulness which link to “Deeply Christian and serving the common good”, helping to enable all pupils and adults to flourish. 

The Programme of Themes

The school has adopted the London Diocesan Board of Schools Collective Worship Calendar based on the Anglican Lectionary; https://ldbs.co.uk/school-collective-worship-calendar/ This is used by our link Clergy to plan and deliver their Worships when they come in to school on a weekly basis. There may be occasions when other events in the Christian calendar are used as a theme for a Vicar's Worship.

Weekly Pattern of Worship

Day	Theme of Worship
Monday	Key Stage Singing Worship Songs are chosen to link to the theme.
Tuesday	Key Stage Visitor Worship Usually, our two local Vicars take it in turns leading Worship linked to the LDBS Collective Worship Calendar. There may be times when another local Faith Leader will come in to lead Worship.
Wednesday	Whole School Headteacher Worship The school’s twelve Learning Certainties are explored in depth over several weeks to give greater understanding to their meaning and show how we can live them out in our daily lives. Please follow the link to see the slides for the Worships that have been completed to far - Learning Certainty Collective Worship
Thursday	Key Stage Teacher-led Worship Christian festivals, other global religious festivals, key global events, and significant anniversaries and moments in history are explored and acknowledged.
Friday	Key Stage Celebration Worship Individual achievement or outstanding behaviour is celebrated with The King’s Shield Badge and Good Work Book. Role model cups are awarded by Year 6 monitors to a class in each Key Stage for showing our school values.

Special Occasions

Our school celebrates special liturgical events and occasions, both in school and at St Anne’s Church, Kew. We also have a termly Eucharist held in school. During a normal school year, the following events are celebrated;

In school; Harvest, Christ is King, Candlemas, Holy Week and Ascension.

At Church; Christmas, Ash Wednesday and Pentecost

Faith Ambassadors

Faith Ambassadors set the hall up for Worship by preparing the Worship Table, operate the laptop, sound system and screen.  A Worship table is used to display a cross, the Bible and the candle – the symbols of the Holy Trinity.  A candle is lit at the start of Worship to show that the Worship has begun, and put out at the end to show that it has finished.