Collective Worship for schools

In a document produced by WASACRE (Wales Association Standing Council for Religious Education), for all school in Wales, guidance is given for Collective Worship during the current pandemic and the diocese Twitter account is referenced as a resource.

This is good news, celebrating what we do in the diocese to promote Collective Worship for all schools. Collective Worship is more than a statutory requirement, it is crucial to the spiritual life of the school. Taking part in collective worship helps build community cohesion by creating a structure around the core values and symbols of Christianity.

It is an exciting resource which pupils, parents and churches can access while learning at home. A big thank you to all the contributors to the channel, with the inspiration for its development coming from St Mary’s Swansea output for sharing services during Holy Week. With further investigation into what resources were available for schools for Collective Worship, which was limited at that time, the YouTube channel was launched.

Setting up the YouTube channel was a bit outside my comfort zone and a bit of a learning curve but with help of clergy in the diocese, particularly Rev Ian and Helen Rees and Rev Jeremy and his wife Nicci, enabled this. They were great support and recorded the first Collective Worship and Reflective Prayer Spaces.

The channel has grown and grown, with resources shared on the Church in Wales website, diocesan website and social media, particularly Twitter @swanbreced

It is important again to say a bit thank to all the contributors. The channels success wouldn’t have been possible for the input of some of the clergy from the diocese, with resources been added from other diocese in Wales and England as well as a theatre company.

The vision is to grow the channel and create webinars as a resource portal for schools and churches to access. At present the resources available are:

• Collective Worship for Schools
• Reflective Prayer Spaces
• RE Lessons
• Wellbeing
• Professional Learning

I am looking for further ideas, resources and recording from clergy and lay members of the diocese and please contact dde.swanbrec@churchinwales.org.uk for further information of how to be involved.