Christian Distinctiveness

Guilden Morden Cof E Primary Academy, we aim to provide each child with a challenging, stimulating and enjoyable education, rooted firmly in our Christian ethos.

• We will strive to develop the whole child through the encouragement of high expectations, in an inclusive and supportive environment, where every child can reach for their potential and grow in independence.
• We will nurture attitudes of care and consideration in keeping with our Christian Ethos.



Recognising its historic foundation, the school preserves and develops its religious character in accordance with the principles of the Church of England and in partnership with the Church at parish and diocesan level. 

• We aim to serve its community by providing an education of the highest quality within the context of Christian belief and practice.
• We welcome families of faith or no faith equally.
• We help the children to gain an understanding of the meaning and significance of faith and promote Christian values through the experiences we offer to all pupils.

Collective Worship

In order to help all our children develop in the image of God and live life to its full, we recognise the importance of Collective Worship in supporting this. Therefore we have a variety of adults and children leading collective worship bringing their own spiritual experiences. Distinctively Christian worship is an integral part of every day in school and a chance to come together and worship as a school family.

Collective Worship is adapted to suit the needs and understanding of different age ranges and abilities. As a school we offer visual displays in each class to focus the children on current theological activities or a space to reflect. We also promote prayer across the school and teach the children that prayer can be carried out at any place and at any time.

All pupils are given the opportunities to appreciate that Christian worship can take many forms e.g. music collective worship with specialist music teacher, stories from the bible linked to the vision and values, prayer in a variety of forms (singing, quiet reflection, chanting).

Worship and prayers make reference to everyday issues for example linking bible stories to living out our school vision and values. We support the children and adults in seeing the relevance and living out our Christian values in their daily lives. For example, we live out love and compassion through the charity work we do, for example our harvest collection for the local food bank or supporting local and national charities.

We organise a variety of different people to lead regular worship, including staff, pupils, members of the clergy, Open the Book and GenR8. We also hold family services at our local church to celebrate key evets in the Christian calendar. At these services we invite everyone involved in school worship to take part.

Our weekly Collective Worship is planned as follows:

Mondays – Values - the whole school join together to explore themes around the different school values each term.

Tuesdays – Collective Worship in class using the theme of the week and led by the class teacher, support staff or pupils.

Wednesdays – Faith/Festivals - the whole school join together to look at events in the Christian calendar as well as in other world religions.

Thursdays –  Singing - the whole school join together to learn new songs for worship, appropriate to the religious season.

Fridays – Celebrations - the whole school join together to celebrate learning, sporting and other achievements throughout the week.