Collective Worship
Our daily act of Christian Collective Worship strengthens and supports the Christian distinctiveness of our school. Our vision and values of friendship, trust, respect and perseverance take a central role in our collective worship as we come together as a community. The themes of worship are also linked closely to the Christian liturgical year and take in major festivals such as, Harvest, Christmas, Easter and Pentecost.
Worship is led by senior leaders, teaching staff, our local Vicars and visitors as well as our Leading Lights ensuring that worship is an important part of the school day giving children time to think, reflect and develop spiritually.
We use a variety of medias including storytelling, videos, liturgy and singing to enable us to reflect on the teachings of the Bible and what we can learn from it and what God wants us to learn from it.
Worship at St Margaret's is inclusive regardless of beliefs or faith. Together we come as a community to enjoy a time of peace and reflection in a safe space. Worship is interactive and all are encouraged to take part where they feel able and contribute their own thoughts and ideas when possible.
We consider worship fundamental to our well-being, as we believe spiritual development is key in helping all children grow academically, but more importantly personally, so they become well-rounded young people, ready to take their place in today’s society.
Leading Lights
The Leading Lights are a group of older children who are ambassadors for our school through their contribution to Collective Worship and support of our Christian vision and values.
The children take part in the school’s collective worship in a practical leadership role.
Leading Lights aims to give children increased ownership, to give them more informed choice in the elements of worship, as well as developing their confidence in being leaders during the act of worship itself and developing their own knowledge and skill set.
This includes:
- Lighting the candle
- Giving the greeting
- Choosing the song
- Writing and leading the prayers and reflections
- Bible readings
- Planning and offering drama
- Write and deliver (with adult support) acts of worship about charities and events e.g. Christian Aid Week
- Designing and arranging the physical focus
- Sending out or leading the blessing
Being a Leading Light is a privilege, but also a responsibility.
Our Leading Lights are good role models in all aspects of school life as well as Collective Worship.
Helping Others
A fundamental part of worship is teaching children about the problems in the world and how everyone can make a difference.
The Eco-Warriors recently organised a fundraising day to raise awareness of the disruption and huge amounts of environmental damage caused by the Australian Bushfires.
They set themselves the target of raising £125 which would mean that we could become a Koala Protector School from the WWF and could give ifaw £100 to go towards the cost of deploying Bear, the Koala sniffer dog and his handler for a day's search efforts to rescue koalas.
To achieve this they organised a colouring competition, TAG day, cake sale and afternoon tea for families and friends. They also led worship in the morning for the school and repeated the service for friends and families who attended the afternoon tea. Not only did they help raise awareness of this important issue and the affects that climate change is having on our world, but they raised over £500 for their charities.
Class Worship
Class Worships are led by the children and provide a wonderful opportunity for the children to shine and share important things that they have learnt during the term with the school and their families.
Celebration Worship
Every week we hold a celebration worship where we recognise children who 'live' our school vision and values. Each class teacher chooses a child from their class to recognise and celebrate a special achievement. The children are presented with a certificate and the teacher shares the reason and value for which they are being celebrated with the whole school. Their certificate is then displayed on our flourishing board to demonstrate individual achievements and how we are living life in all its fullness!
We also celebrate birthdays during worship as birthdays are a time to celebrate God’s gift of life and reminds us that everyone is valued as an individual within our school community. When we say the birthday prayer, we remind each other that every person is a gift from God!