St Mark's CE Primary School

COLLECTIVE WORSHIP

All acts of worship at St Mark's are Christian in character, although we draw comparisons with other religions and cultural traditions. All our assemblies seek to develop children’s understanding of the Church and the role it can play in their lives; to develop their understanding of a Christian moral code and how it applies to them and all in our community.

Above all, Collective Worship at St Mark’s is sensitive to the needs and backgrounds of the community we serve.

All Worship  follows the worship structure, which you can see below. 

PICTURE NEWS

Each week we choose a current news story, provide an image, a thought-provoking question and a variety of teaching resources. The resources are designed to expose children to current affairs, discover their interests and bring the world closer to their everyday lives. Our resources provide opportunities for children to learn from our world and develop respect for other’s beliefs, feelings and faiths. They encourage exploration, discussion, challenge and inspire children to learn!

Picture News is used at St. Mark's to inspire and engage in real-life learning that children can impact and influence! It gives children opportunities to develop learning further through news stories that inspire them. It allows them to discover talents and interests through the broad coverage. How can you know you are interested in something if you don’t even know it exists?

If children want to make a difference, this gives them the confidence to speak out. They must develop resilience. If at first, they do not succeed, develop ideas further, do not give up! Work together and share ideas to learn even more.

Picture News  exposes children to a range of current issues including political, religious, cultural, environmental, social, moral, and spiritual. It makes British Values relevant and meaningful and develop links between personal, school and community values. Children are able to demonstrate respect and tolerance explaining how they should behave or what they should say.

The information below shows the half termly coverage and the weekly question our  children explore through the Reflection Challenges.

PRAYER

We wrote a school prayer that is shared in every worship.  The children also write their own prayers and place them in the prayer box on the altar, to be shared in Worship.

CLASS LED WORSHIP:   KS2 classes lead a service and FS/KS1 classes present the Christmas Nativity. These are based on the work the class have been doing or on the termly assembly theme and all children should be involved in some way.  

HARVEST-YEAR 4

CHRISTMAS YEAR 3

EASTER YEAR 5

We welcome the children with our call and respond:

Worship Lead:  "Jesus is the Light of the World." 

Children: "Let Your Light Shine"

In our Whole School Worship every Monday, we introduce the Picture News theme for the week, and introduce the Reflection Space Challenge.

You can see the videos and examples of the Reflection Spaces below.

On Tuesdays the classes hold their Collective Worship in class, to complete the weekly Reflection Space Activity, as a meaningful response to Monday's worship.  On Wednesday, Miss McKenzie shares worship with the whole school,  linked to our weekly themes, and any special religious celebrations or international events that may be taking place.  Our Music Lead, Miss Livingston leads Singing Worship. on Thursdays .

On Fridays, we celebrate the children's achievements throughout the week, as we see how they have let their lights shine! We also invite parents and carers of the "Shining Stars of the Week" to join us. The Stars of the Week are chosen by teachers, and the award is given to those children who have consistently demonstrated our HERO values.  You can see examples of the certificates in the Latest News Section.

You can see our Worship Calendar here

Our Collective Worship Policy may be read here.

OUR HERO VALUES 

We share our HERO value Bible stories in Collective Worship, and these are embedded through Reflection Space Activities and our HERO Values Story Sacks.  Each class has their own set of story sacks, that the children can revisit in their Reflection Spaces.