ABSTRACT
The provision of daily acts of collective worship in all maintained schools is probably one of the most controversial elements of the curriculum at the present time. The debate which has surrounded it since the publication of the Education Reform Act of 1988 is not new, however, and during most of the 50 years since collective worship in schools was first made a legal requirement in the Education Act of 1944 there has been a continuing spiral of argument and counterargument. Initially, the debate focused on the validity of compulsory worship in the curriculum of a liberal education and this remains a central issue. However, although this question continues to lie at the heart of the debate, as a consequence of the requirements of the Reform Act it has, during the last decade, been largely submerged in the public realm by arguments of a more practical nature concerned with the type of worship which might be considered appropriate in the schools of a democratic society whose government wishes to maintain its traditional Christian heritage whilst necessarily recognising the pluralist nature of its population. To this circumstance can be added the recent heightening of demands for the provision of stronger moral and values education in schools. These calls have made frequent reference to the potential contribution of collective worship to this dimension of pupil development (Shephard, 1996; Redwood, 1996), and have resulted in renewed demands both for a reinforcement of its provision and for a reduction in its frequency.
