Governors attack plans to scrap Christian assemblies

GOVERNORS OF Catholic schools have criticised the National Governors’ Association (NGA) for advocating the abolition of compulsory Christian assemblies in schools.

The NGA called for the abolition of laws that say daily worship is compulsory in schools at the most recent meeting of its policy committee, claiming that few schools met the requirement and that it was “meaningless” in communities where the majority were not Christian.
Elizabeth Mills, a Catholic who was governor at Henry Box School in Witney, Oxfordshire, a state comprehensive, for nine years, criticised the decision, saying that a period of reflection in a busy day was for good for students, whatever their faith.

“We live in chaotic times. Many young people are denied the opportunity for quiet and learning a bit about their place in the world,” she said, adding that removing worship in schools was part of a general trend to marginalise Christianity. “Removing an act of worship is another act of vandalism being encouraged by secular forces,” she said.

Carmelite priest, Fr Wilfrid McGreal, former chairman of governors at St Matthew’s Academy, a Catholic school in Blackheath, south-east London, agreed, saying: “There has always been a tradition of gathering pupils together to help them to pray. If this is eliminated, it disassociates young people from contact with the spiritual and the transcendent. To undermine this link is an impoverishment.”

The Catholic Education Service  said: “We support the long-­standing arrangements for collect­ive worship in community schools, the abolition of which would fail to appreciate over 1,500 years of Christian tradition in England.”