School Assemblies
For those readers who are not in the UK, and indeed for many who are in the UK, the idea of the school assembly might need a little explanation. The Education Act of 1870 established a system of compulsory schooling in Britain. Amongst the provisions of the law were the fact that every school had to start the day with a collective act of worship and once a week there should be a lesson of Religious Instruction (RI) or Religious Education (RE). Until the Education Reform Act of 1988, which introduced the National Curriculum, RE was the the only compulsory subject on the school curriculum, although a school which didn’t offer lessons in other subjects such as English and Maths might well have raised a few eyebrows.
The Daily Act of Worship was the school assembly.
When I was a schoolboy, the whole school would assemble in the school hall. The doors would open about ten minutes before nine and we would walk through the school corridors, (in silence … the were school prefects and staff on duty to enforce this) and file into the hall where we would take our seats and wait. If you were late and all the seats were taken, then you stood in serried ranks either at the back or down the sides of the hall. At nine o’clock, on the dot, the Headmaster would walk in and mount the stage.
After a curt “Good Morning.”, he would announce the “service”. This was the set of prayers taken from the “Daily Service”, the school and hymn prayer book. There were about twenty different services in the book, and we used to dread Service XI … the sung service. It was the Sursum Corda, (which is Latin for “Let us lift up our hearts”), and I can still recite, (chant), it today:
Head
Lift up your hearts
School
We lift them up unto the Lord God
Head
Let us give thanks unto our Lord God
School
It is meet and right so to do
Head
It is very meet, right and our bounden duty that we should at all time and in all places give thanks unto thee Oh Lord, holy father, almighty, everlasting God
School
Therefore with Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of heaven,
We laud and magnify thy glorious name,
Evermore praising thee and saying:
Together
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts:
Heaven and earth are full of thy glory.
Glory be to thee, O Lord Most High.
Head
For the Church on Earth and the Church in Heaven
School
We praise thee, Oh Lord
Head
For prophets and leaders and heroes in days of old
School
We praise thee, Oh Lord
Head
For the multitude that no man can number, of every age, nation and tongue standing before the throne of God
School
We thank thee, Oh Lord
Together
Eternal Father who has called us,
Whose love unites us,
Whose hand upholds us,
Unto thee be Glory in the Church,
By Christ Jesus,
Throughout all ages,
World without end,
Amen.
and so on …
There would then come a homily, and uplifting thought for the day. Sometimes it would be a re-telling of a Bible story in modern idiom … perhaps a comment on the day’s news … sometimes something totally unrelated. Sometimes the homily was given by the Head himself, and sometimes by another member of staff. They were usually organized in themes with five installments, that would last a week … one a day. Once a year, the senior students would be allocated a week and one year I, together with one of my best friends, was put in charge of coordinating our contribution. We took the theme “living together”, which raised a few eyebrows, but it really about things like racial discrimination, which was a hot theme at that time. Although most of them were not that inspiring, I do still remember with affection some of the assemblies that I sat through: the David Kossof versions of Bible Stories, the diaries of the curate on St. Helena, … and so on.
After that came a the singing of a hymn. Some hymns were popular and sung with gusto whilst others, especially the less well known ones, would sink into a dirge.
On Fridays, the school orchestra, (about half a dozen violins), would accompany the singing. I was learning the violin, (although I was never really any good at it …), and so I got my place in the front of the hall, just in front of the stage where everyone could see my bowing action … and quite a few would pull faces at us and comment later on how awful a sound we would produce. It didn’t really put us off, however.
Finally, there would be notices … match reports, announcements, … before we would be fianally dismissed, filing off to our first lesson of the day.
Remember, this was a State school, not a church school. I am not sure that all the state schools would have organized their assemblies in the same way. The Headmaster, “Percy” Garth, retired the same year that I left the school, and I am certain that his successor would have changed the routine.
By the time that I started my teaching career, just a few years later, the school assembly had already undergone a huge number of changes, and I don’t think I have ever taken part in one quite the same since we sang the traditional “God be with you till we meet again” on my last of school.
In most schools it was no longer an “Act of Worship” in keeping with the multi racial, multi cultural, multi faith society which Britain had become. Most assemblies now became a sort of platform for a “thought for the day”.
In many places it wasn’t physically possible for the whole school to gather in one place, so many schools organized group assemblies, (year group or House assemblies) on a rotational basis, so that each group might gather together just once or twice a week. Each form or class would then be given some time to have an uplifting theme or talk in their classrooms … but this was, in my opinion, just a sop to the law as it was more often ignored or used for other purposes rather than observed for its official purpose.
Bishkek