Collective Worship
At King William Street CE Primary School, our children are used to coming together throughout the week for Collective Worship. These sessions are focus on our school value for the term, important events and special dates in the Church’s year as well as promoting the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of our children.
Our worship is inclusive and allows all of our school community the chance to be part of the experience, whilst respecting the integrity of family and cultural backgrounds. Sometime we gather altogether as a whole school, sometimes as a class. Over the week, our worship is led by a range of people, including Mrs Clarke, the class teacher, some children or a member of the local church community.
Our school values are: Friendship Respect Trust Compassion Honesty Courage
Our Collective Worship Policy
During our whole school worship each Monday, stories from the Bible and other faith texts alongside people who model the value are used to explore what these values look like in real life. For example, Rosa Parks and Malala Yousafzai were used to demonstrate courage. As part of our whole school worship, a values band is given to those children who have demonstrated the schools value in some way.
Weekly class worship takes place in the classroom and the children are encouraged to share and reflect upon a range of questions, news items and stories from different faiths. For example, ‘What can we do to keep our ocean ‘healthy’ ‘Should we always be treated the same?’ Do you think famous people have a responsibility to use their voice to help other? Reflecting on the Bible story of Deborah the children considered ‘what do we do when we are afraid?’
A Class Worship book, displayed in each classroom, records these responses.
We have strong links with the Old Town Partnership of Churches. Throughout the year we regularly use Christ Church and invite families to join our school community to celebrate the Christian Festivals of Harvest, Christmas and Easter. We also use the churches as a teaching resource whenever possible. The Rev. Simon Stevenette and Rev. Rach Collins, regularly lead some of our key stage worship alongside Mark Barrett and Janet Roe.
Please click here to visit Christ Church website.
King William has a Church Council which represents the children in each class. These children regularly participate in whole school worship and alongside Ms Prevost suggest new ideas in support of our Christian Distinctiveness. For example, they have played a key role in developing our spiritual garden.
In our school we always think of how we can serve and help others. Over the course of a year we support a number of charities:
- Our harvest appeal supported Swindon Salvation Army, providing food parcels to vulnerable families in the Swindon area.
- Church Council held a Cake Sale to raise money to donate to the Harbour Project which is a local charity which supports the Afghan refugees in Swindon. https://www.kingwilliam.swindon.sch.uk/pages/news/127445
- FSCI 2022 Christmas Box Appeal were we sent shoe boxes full of small gifts to marginalised families and individuals in Southeast Europe.
- Comic and Sports Relief.
- Children in Need.
In addition to supporting charities, we have regularly sent letters and cards to some of the elderly residents in the area. Feedback from the staff showed how much these were appreciated. For Christmas 2022, Church Council helped to set the tables for Christmas Dinner at Christ Church in the Community Centre for people who lived alone in the Old Town community. For Christmas 2021, Church Council helped to pack Christmas hampers for for people who lived alone in the Old Town community and school staff donated gifts to four residents of Kingsmead Nursing home who have no family of their own. Zebra and Leopard class made hamper labels and Christmas cards for Christ Church parishioners.
Leopard class help at Bath Road Methodist Church fortnightly luncheon club. This year, Sing Club sang carols at Christmas and sang other songs at Easter for residents Kingsmead Nursing Home a local care homes in Old Town supporting individuals with nursing, residential and dementia care needs. A small group of children also enjoyed Christmas crafts at Kingsmead.
'The children are taught how to make a positive difference within their local community and wider society by living, and putting into action, their Christian values.' OFSTED 2019
