Collective Worship is a time when the whole school comes together to think about different themes.  Its purpose is to:

• Experience the rituals that are followed in church i.e responding to a Christian welcome, lighting the candles, learning from scripture and joining together to reflect and pray;
• Enable pupils to reflect on and question issues such as belonging to the school community, the wider community and to humanity as a whole
• Reinforce a sense of community and cohesion through appreciating those things we have in common
• Develop a reflective approach to life
• Support pupils in the development of spiritual, cultural and moral perspectives.
• Develop a sense of the individual's place in the world beyond the physical, material and the here and now
• Provide time to consider values and beliefs - both their own and those of others
• Raise awareness of difficulties experienced living a life based on values, beliefs and principles which may not be shared by everyone in the wider community
• Provide opportunity to celebrate achievement and to share times of celebration
• Support students in responding to crisis at a personal and collective level and provide them with a vocabulary to explore feelings and responses
• Support those who have particular needs or who are engaged in times of crisis

Collective Worship  reinforces the sense of the school community, by giving pupils the opportunity to share things of worth with each other, within a reflective space.  Those pupils who have a faith will be able to use the reflection time to consider issues in the light of their religious beliefs and to pray or worship internally as they feel appropriate whilst those pupils who don't have a religious belief will have the opportunity to reflect and make a personal internalised response to the same stimulus. They will also be able to enter into dialogue with those of faith, enabling both believers and non-believers to appreciate each other's stances.

At St. Stephen's we use our school values to explore beliefs and to teach the children behaviours which will help them in their future lives.  Our school values come from MIcah 6:8 - justice, mercy and humility.

Justice: Acting justly - 21st March 2022

This week we have thinking about the importance of being acting justly and doing what is right and fair.   We listened to a story within which a man was going to be punished for stealing some food.  He told the king that ne had some magic seeds but only those who ha never stolen anything could plant them.  Of course, everyone had so the man was pardoned.  We were reminded of the story from the bible of the Righteous Judge, where a woman is condemned to be stoned to death for doing wrong by her husband.  When asked his view on the matter, Jesus replied 'Let those who have never sinned cast the first stone'.  As no one could say that they had never done anything wrong, the woman was free to go.

Finally we consider the quote from Matthew 7:3 and agreed that we need to act justly towards everyone as we are all guilty of doing something wrong at some time.

Quotes and Questions

Each week we follow up our Collective Worship with in class worship. It is a time when we look at either a Bible quote or something poignant that someone has said which relates to our school values.  We think about the message that the quote is giving and then use it to reflect on our own lives and how we should behave.

School Prayer

We recognise that prayer is an opportunity for people of different faiths to communicate with their God.  At St. Stephen's,  we encourage the children to use prayer as a means of reflecting on issues discussed in Collective Worship or to think about themselves and others.  We have a prayer corner which children can go to write prayers.   Children are invited to share these prayers each week during worship.

Our School Prayer

Dear God,

Thank you for our school and all of the adults who help us. We are lucky to be part of strong loving community where justice, mercy and humility are valued.

Please help us to work hard and to learn, to listen and to share our ideas clearly with other people.

Help us to think about ways we can look after the world and change it for the better and guide us to explore, and innovate to meet our ambitions.

Please help us to act justly by being fair to others and treating everyone equally; to show mercy by being kind; forgiving those who do the wrong thing and hurt us and demonstrate humility by being selfless and putting the needs of others before our own.

Let us work together to make our school and our community a happy and safe place, where we can learn together to Change the World in small ways every day.

Amen