Collective worship is the formal name for 'assembly' (known as Religious Observance in Scotland). This is still compulsory on a daily basis in England, and schools often struggle to lead collective worship with meaningful Christian content, five days a week all through the year. Some schools have no Christian staff, or no one willing to take this responsibility. This is where church groups can help.
There are many good Christian resources available for collective worship that a church could recommend to a school. Church members could offer to purchase resources for the school to use. (For a good range of resources for Christian collective worship, check out the bookshop or resources sections of www.stapleford-centre.org. Barnabas also has a range of collective worship and other resources available at www.barnabasinschools.org.uk.)
The church and school together could host training events for teachers and children's workers, such as puppet workshops or creative arts events, to make sure that collective worship is relevant and intelligible to pupils.
There is sometimes the expectation that the church leader will visit a school to lead collective worship. Everyone may need to consider whether or not that is the leader's gifting. It is possible that there are other church members who are more gifted for working with children and they would probably be the better person to go into the school. Some churches or groups of churches have created 'school assembly teams' who are skilled at communicating the Christian message to children, in leading collective worship and which can serve a number of schools in this way. Even one gifted individual church member can make a huge difference to a school. Leading collective worship usually forms a big part of the work done by Christian schools workers.
When leading collective worship, church members will need to bear in mind that most children rarely go inside a church and may never have been to a worship service. It is important to respect the integrity of the pupils and their own religious faith, which may well not be Christianity. Never assume that the gathered group are Christians by saying things like 'We all believe that Jesus is the Son of God'. Use phrases like 'Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God or 'I believe this because I am a Christian'. This is not the place for evangelism and 'compulsory worship' is a contradiction in terms. Rather, contributing to collective worship is an opportunity to share what Christians believe and the essential truths of the Gospel in ways that are meaningful and relevant for pupils. Invite pupils to join in with prayer, reflection and worship; they can then choose whether or not they do.