Criticism of non-church school form assemblies in West Sussex slated by RE council

Form assemblies' in non-church West Sussex secondary schools have been strongly defended.

The assemblies were dismissed as 'not very successful' at the end of proposed new guidance on collective worship which is about to be sent to schools throughout the county.

But members of the West Sussex Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education '“ SACRE '“ agreed the wording should be amended to indicate the assemblies could be successful.

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Chairman Jeremy Taylor, a Church of England representative, said he could give examples of success, and of where they were highly regarded by heads and staff, although he accepted a lot of work was involved in them.

It was 'rather negative' to say they were unsuccessful.

One area which could work in secondary schools was a 'thought for the day', which could be read with integrity by people of faith, or not of a faith. To end the guidance on a downbeat note was wrong, he said, when this was an area for good and positive experiments.

Nigel Bloodworth, county council general advisor for RE, said the comment was first included a few years ago, when guidance was produced for secondary schools '“ not church schools.

"In doing that, we talked to a good number of schools, and read advice about what works and does not work," he added. At that stage, and he thought this was still the case, form assemblies were not very successful in community schools.

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Form teachers needed to be prepared to do them, and do them well.

"Although you can expect that in church schools, community schools felt this was not something you could expect of your staff," he added.

Schools did not want to put pressure on staff to do this, when they had reasons of conscience for not doing it.

The assemblies happened in some classrooms and not others. "This isn't supposed to say 'don't do it', just that it was not successful," said Mr Bloodworth.

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Teachers' representative Malcolm Hawke said: "Form assemblies can be successful."

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