First Federation Trust
Collective Workshop
Assemblies are an opportunity for our children to encounter faith through meeting, exploring, questioning and responding to big questions about life and God. It is a time where the school community comes together to learn together, reflect together and be still together. They learn from the main teachings of the Bible and how these teachings can be applied tot heir life. It is invitational, inspiring and inclusive of those of all faiths and none. It seeks to meet the needs of all children and staff, wherever they are on their own faith journey. We follow a model of gather, engage, send and respond through a variety of ways such as prayer, reading and reflecting on the Bible, liturgy and worship. Throughout a week the children will take part in the following assemblies:
- Values based assemblies - led by the Head teacher or a member of the local clergy team.
- Big Questions assembly – an opportunity to develop their spirituality through discussion questions about themselves, others, beauty and beyond.
- Picture News – A look at local and global news through the lens of the Christian faith.
- Hymn Practise – The children learn songs from a variety of Christian traditions.
- Celebration Assembly – A chance to celebrate both learning and character formation through our values awards.
Children lead key elements of worship such as prayer in class assemblies. The ethos committee lead assemblies on both sites as part of our ethos days. They are responsible for evaluating collective worship and informing its direction in the future.
An example of an assembly timetable is below:
Assembly Rota Spring 2 22-23 - Copy.docx
We are currently using the following resources to support our assemblies.
Harvest
At the beginning of October we celebrated our Harvest Festival on both sites. We thought about how we can be thankful for what we have and also use what we have to help others. The children brought in tins and packets for Sidmouth Food Bank and we also raised money for ‘Send a Cow’, an organisation that supports people in Africa to be able to grow their own crops and farm their own animals in order to not only sustain themselves and their families but sell some of it too.
Rights of Withdrawal from Collective Worship
Our schools seek to be an inclusive community. However, we respect the right of parents to withdraw their children from Collective Worship. Parents will be invited to a meeting to discuss withdrawal and to explore how their concern may be met. Parents are not obliged to attend such a meeting in which case withdrawal shall be put into effect immediately and the school will notify the parent. Withdrawal from Collective Worship may be in whole or part.
The Academy/School will provide a system of suitable supervision for children withdrawn from Acts of Collective Worship in line with safeguarding procedures. However, no additional work will be set or followed in this time as this is time for reflection. Also, alternative provision would be consistent with the overall purposes of the school curriculum as set out in the Education Acts (see, for example, Part 6 of the Education Act 2002, and Circular 1/94). Parents may also be asked to provide materials for reflection suitable for the child’s age and ability.