Common words, Common Worship

Using Common Worship in Church Schools

The Dearing Review placed church schools firmly at the centre of the Church’s mission agenda , a status which was affirmed locally in a resolution passed by the Ely Diocesan Synod in 2001. Church schools themselves include within their statutory instrument of government a strong ethos statement in which their Anglican heritage is celebrated and affirmed. So how is this distinctive Anglican heritage to be demonstrated in the life of a church school? A key answer to this question can be found within in its daily round of Christian collective worship; as the self-evaluation materials which support the Statutory Inspection of Anglican Schools (SIAS) ask: “How well does collective worship develop learners’ understanding of Anglican faith and practice?”

This materials on this site are intended to support church schools in Ely Diocese in thinking about, and developing, distinctive Anglican collective worship, in partnership with their local parish community and the diocese as a whole.

Areas of Development
These materials will support church school collective worship by:

• encouraging awareness and usage of the liturgical shape of an Anglican service of worship in the context of collective worship, and by providing worship models and recommendations suitable for use in the church school context
• 
  enriching the school’s vocabulary of worship
• 
  fostering an understanding of the place of signs and symbols in worship
• 
  encouraging worship which reflects the seasonal rhythms of the liturgical year (including a stewardship ecology)
• 
  introducing an ecumenical and international dimension to worship

The materials will also assist the church schools in entering into the worshipping life of their own local parish(es) and vice versa, supporting each other so that they can find ways to worship and work together effectively.

Thinking about worship: an introduction

• Worship: shape and movement, words and action
• Comparing Common Worship and Collective Worship

The Schools and Common Worship Project

• Resources used in this project
• Outline for an act of collective worship

The Worship Materials

• Gathering and greeting
• Kyries and confessions
• Weekly and seasonal prayers
• Responses for Intercessions
• Blessings and concluding prayers
• Famous Prayers

The materials are taken from
Common Worship: Services and Prayers for the Church of England, copyright © The Archbishops’ Council 2000;
New Patterns for Worship, copyright © The Archbishops’ Council 2002;
Common Worship: Alternative Collects, copyright © The Archbishops’ Council 2004

This compilation is copyright © 2006 Ely DBE, but may be reproduced in this form with due acknowledgment. Where single items are printed, the Archbishops’ Council copyright should be acknowledged.

The complete text of Common Worship is available on-line on the Church of England's website