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Schools and the Church of England: Collective Worship and Religious Education

Collective worship

The Church of England Board of Education fully supports the current legislation, which states that daily collective worship is the right of every child and "should be maintained as part of the pupils' educational experience". This law is flexible enough to accommodate other denominations and faiths. Thousands of schools have a record of good practice in their daily collective worship. There is immediate help available for any schools needing help and ideas from the Education Division, The National Society and Church House Publishing.

Religious education

The Church of England Education Division is passionately concerned with the status of religious education in the curriculum. It worked with the government and other faith groups to develop a national framework (www.qca.org.uk/re) which will further strengthen provision of RE in all schools. Voluntary aided schools and C of E Academies usually teach a specifically church developed multi-faith syllabus. Other church schools teach the syllabus developed by their LEA. Extensive resources and advice, as well as training and management of religious education in schools can be accessed.

Inspection of RE, worship, SMSC and Ethos

Church of England schools have their religious education, worship and SMSC inspected under section 23 of the School Inspections Act 1996. This is carried out by trained inspectors in parallel with the main section 10 Ofsted inspections. Link to Ofsted

Other schools page: Church schools; Support for professionals

© The Archbishops' Council of the Church of England, 2004