Faith group

To St James's School for a meeting of the faith group.

The Faith Group is a committee of the school governing body and it has a special brief to oversee the Christian character of the school.

At our last meeting we were reviewing the school's Religious Education programme, today our focus turned to collective worship and to a review of our Collective Worship Policy.

The policy says 'worship is essential to the life of our school and plays an important part in the fulfilling of our role and mission as a Church of England school.' What we call 'assemblies' are more properly called 'acts of collective worship' in a CofE school.

It is excellent that each school day can start with an act of worship, as we recognise God's presence with us ('The Lord is here: His Spirit is with us') as we hear from his word, the Bible, and as we pray to him our loving creator and heavenly father.

Penny, Paul and I lead the assemblies on Tuesdays; on other days they are led by the senior leadership team, or by class teachers if there is a class assembly that day.

Then we have our special whole school services in church - the next is on Maundy Thursday (planned jointly with the Junior Faith Group), the last day of term.

With nearly 600 children in the school, our services in St James's Church are the only time that the whole school can meet together., and that makes them extra special, as does the various ways the children themselves are involved in singing, dancing, reading and planning the service.