‘With Christ, our life becomes full and everything makes sense. When Christ is your friend, you have joy and happiness’

Pope Francis

At St Ethelbert’s we belong to a loving, welcoming, forgiving family that lives in the life of the Gospels. Jesus is central to every aspect of school life and acts of worship may take place any time during the day. It could be a single act of worship with the whole school family or separate acts of worship in class groups. In our school there is a clear difference between Collective Worship and Assemblies. When we gather for Collective Worship we focus on the Word of God, we use symbols and ritual and we are aware of God’s presence among us. Collective Worship is not designated curriculum time and is not included in any part of the curriculum, including RE.

Collective Worship in St Ethelbert’s is an integral part of our ethos, aims and relationships, as our values of Thoughtfulness, Inclusion and Knowledge permeate all aspects of school life and all relationships. It is a way of deepening our relationship with God together as well as individually. Through the many forms this worship takes, we grow in spiritual, moral and liturgical understanding. We allow ourselves to grow in understanding of our living faith tradition and then develop a sense of wonder and inspiration in the person of Christ. It is through Collective Worship that we share each other’s faith experiences and learn the skills of prayer and reflection. This is a very important aspect of life at St Ethelbert’s.

We aim to:

• To develop an awareness and understanding of the presence of God in each child’s life and to encourage a personal response to that presence
• To allow each child to develop their conscience and make moral judgements based on our commitment to following in the footsteps of Christ
• To enable each child to participate and respond to liturgy and worship in an appropriate way to their age and maturity.

COLLECTIVE WORSHIP IN OUR SCHOOL

Collective Worship takes place in our school daily. Staff and pupils are encouraged to pray with thoughtfulness and with respect through a variety of prayer experiences - Whole School Mass, Assemblies and Prayer Services, together with formal classroom and individual reflective prayer. This worship follows the liturgical year and includes appropriate Feast days. It also includes Gospel Virtues, British values, world events and other faiths to enable pupils to appreciate their place in society, and respect those around them. Reception Class experiences classroom prayer and assemblies and then when they are ready, they join us for Whole School Mass.

The Crowning of Mary 2023

St Ethelbert's celebrated both 'The Crowning of Mary' and the 'Coronation of the King' at a Whole School Mass. The children were dressed in red, white and blue and children from each class were chosen to bring flowers to place by Mary. Then Mary was crowned by two of our children who were delighted to be chosen for the special honour; the girls have completed all their First Holy Communion lessons here with us and are then going to be travelling back to Poland to make their First Holy Communion with all their family. 

The children were able to answer all the questions from Fr Christopher about the Coronation during the homily and then Fr Christopher made a lovely comparison of Crowning Mary and Crowning our King. The children read with real reverence, sang beautifully, and were an absolute credit to the school. 

Later on that day during our Celebration Assembly, our youngest members of the school enjoyed bringing up flowers to Crown Mary in school, with the help of Mr Marshall. This was finished off with the whole school praying the Hail Mary in French! What a lovely day was had by all!