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Religion and Worldviews and Collective Worship 2023-24
Collective Worship
‘We see remarkable things everyday.’ (Luke 5:26)
Our vision underpins everything we do at Old Cleeve First School. Through deep, personal reflections and a focus on our spiritual awareness, we encourage all who attend and visit our school to reflect on our vision and celebrate the ‘remarkable things that we see every day. ‘(Luke 5:26). Whether this is through academic success or a personal challenge, we aim to show these remarkable achievements through our values of ‘Achieve, Thrive, Care and Belong.’
Our school aims to serve the community by providing an education of the highest quality within the context of Christian belief and practice. We aim for all to be inspired by the stories, songs and prayers that describe the actions of Jesus and his impact on the world. To promote spiritual flourishment, opportunities are offered for individuals to share their experiences and thoughts through Big Questions, Thunks, prayer trees and our remarkable experience boxes, which encourage everybody to celebrate the wonderful thoughts, actions and deeds they have seen within school and the community.
At Old Cleeve, we hold a daily act of Collective Worship. The organisation for Collective worship can change, but normally it includes: a whole school Collective Worship on Monday which introduces a key topic or piece of spiritual learning for the week. Afterwards, follows a whole school Collective Worship on Tuesday which introduces the key theme/question for the week using another bible story or context; a class-based worship; worship through song and worship led by the children. On a Friday, we have our school Celebration worship. We place a strong emphasis on celebrating pupils’ achievements in relation to the themes that reflect our Christian values and how they have shown these themes through the acts/tasks that they have done.
Worship Themes
Each half term we focus on one theme which helps embed our core Christian values.
These themes known as Old Cleeve Stars which are shown below, are allotted to one of our core Christian values. Each Christian Value apart from Achieve is given a full terms reflection. Achieve runs consistently throughout the year. Pupils and staff are central to the delivery of these themes, all who visit our school are given the opportunity to spiritually discuss, reflect and question during both whole school and class collective worships.
Religion and Worldviews
Religion and Worldviews has a very high profile within the Old Cleeve curriculum and makes a significant contribution to preparing pupils for life in modern Britain. The Religion and Worldviews curriculum fosters a curious, diverse, and thoughtful approach to RE. Pupils can explore and embed their understanding of Christianity and being a member of a church school, through their respective Religion and Worldviews lessons, alongside our weekly Collective Worships, Religious Festivals programme, and prayer time. At Old Cleeve, we follow Understanding Christianity for our Christianity units, whilst using Somerset SACRE’s Awareness, Mystery and Values scheme alongside additional resources from NATRE for other religious and non-religious worldviews. This provides children an opportunity to explore a vast wealth of different religions, but also alternative viewpoints within a religion as well as worldviews from Humanists and other non-religious beliefs in a safe and nurturing space. We encourage children to think and reflect about their own worldviews and how these views might have been shaped through different theological, cultural, and social science lenses. Through children’s weekly Religion and Worldview lessons, pupils are encouraged to foster a questioning mind when exploring the diverse cultural, spiritual, and religious faiths from across the globe. We encourage children to make links and explore similarities and differences across and within religions and how this shapes cultures across the world. We aim to give children opportunities to embed their learning further by undertaking trips to special religious, cultural and non-religious places, so that they can understand the significance and importance that these places have to others and how these areas form and contribute to the communities around them. Learning activities provide fully for the needs of all learners. Pupils will be inspired by the subject and develop a wide range of skills such as enquiry, analysis, interpretation, evaluation and reflection, to deepen their understanding of the impact of religion and worldviews on the world.
Why Religion and Worldviews Matter
The ability to understand the faith or belief of individuals and communities, and how these may shape their culture and behaviour, is an invaluable asset for children in modern day Britain. Explaining religious and non-religious worldviews in an academic way allows young people to engage with the complexities of belief, avoid stereotyping and contribute to an informed debate.
- https://www.religiouseducationcouncil.org.uk.
Key Documents 2023-24