LEICESTERSHIRE HEAD TEACHERS WANT RETHINK ON SCHOOLS' DAILY WORSHIP

This article appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Leicestershire head teachers want rethink on schools' daily worship 

Some schools in Leicestershire are calling on the Government to change the wording of a law which says they should provide collective Christian worship every day. 

Head teachers said that while a daily assembly was an important part of school life, the requirement for it to focus on the Christian faith did not reflect today's multi-cultural society. 

They spoke after a national BBC survey suggested many state schools are ignoring their duty to provide a daily act of worship. 

While all of the heads who spoke to the Mercury yesterday said they did provide daily worship, some said they interpreted the legislation in ways that fitted the multi-cultural nature of their schools. 

Carolyn Robson is executive head at Rushey Mead School, Leicester, where 95 per cent of pupils are not Christian. 

She said that thought should be given to rewording the law so it better reflected today's society.
"The highest percentage of pupils at Rushey Mead School are of Hindu faith, followed closely by Sikh faith," said Ms Robson. "We interpret the law, like many schools, in a way that fits our school, and it is a way that has always pleased Ofsted. 

"We will learn about and celebrate a whole range of festivals – whether it be Eid, Diwali or a Christian festival. We have a daily assembly for all our pupils in groups of around 300 which will have a moral theme – sometimes religious, sometimes not. 

"It would be highly inappropriate for us to just look at Christian faith. I think some thought should be given to rewording the law so it fits with our multi-cultural society." 

Christopher Hassall is head of Taylor Road Primary School, in St Matthew's, Leicester, where 95 per cent of the 600 pupils are Muslim. 

He said: "The law could do with looking at because we are a multi-faith society now, and particularly in Leicester, where there are large school populations where the children are not Christians." 

Mr Hassall said there were ways of interpreting the law which meant the legal demands of daily worship were still met. 

"What you might call broadly Christian could be called broadly Islamic, broadly Hindu and so on, in that there are certain values, moral values specifically, that different faiths all share, such as telling the truth, helping people who are less fortunate than us," he said. 

The law requires all state schools to provide a daily act of collective worship for their pupils, such as a prayer or hymns, which must be wholly or mainly of a Christian character. 

The only exception is where a school has an affiliation with a different faith. 

Two-thirds of parents questioned in the BBC survey said their child did not attend a daily act of collective worship at school. 

Leicestershire County Council said that it was not involved in monitoring whether schools adhered to the law. 

Leicester City Council did not comment.