From Values To Virtues An Investigation Into The Ethical Content of

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From values to virtues: an investigation

into the ethical content of English
primary school assemblies
a
Graeme Smith & Susannah Smith

a
Theology & Religion, University of Chichester, Chichester, UK
Education, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

Version of record first published: 09 Feb 2012.
To cite this article: Graeme Smith & Susannah Smith (2013): From values to virtues: an
investigation into the ethical content of English primary school assemblies, British Journal of
Religious Education, 35:1, 5-19
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Vol. 35, No. 1, January 2013, 519
From values to virtues: an investigation into the ethical content of

English primary school assemblies
Graeme Smitha* and Susannah Smithb
Theology & Religion, University of Chichester, Chichester, UK; bEducation,
University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
Downloaded by [University of Roehampton] at 20:11 03 December 2012
School assemblies are unique and important events in the lives of

schools. They are an opportunity for a head teacher to shape and celebrate the ethos and priorities of a school. However, the discussion of
assemblies has stagnated because it is mired in the debate about legal
compliance to the 1988 Education Reform Act and its interpretation in
circular 1/94. This article reports on a research project which investigated
the ethical ideas communicated in primary school assemblies. It is found
that almost all assemblies sought to communicate a form of virtue ethics.
We observed the promotion of courage, kindness, loyalty and responsibility. Further, different virtues were emphasised in different schools
depending on their social location. For example, perseverance and resilience were often stressed in a school from a low socio-economic area.
The article concludes with an examination of the implications of our ndings for the discussion of legal compliance to the 1988 Act.
Keywords: school assembly; collective worship; virtue ethics; values;
moral education; circular 1/94
Introduction
Assemblies are signicant occasions in the lives of schools. They are opportunities to express and celebrate the cultural and ethical norms which underpin a local school community. A head teacher will know that important work
in forming and shaping a school ethos can be undertaken in assembly time.
Assemblies are exceptional vehicles through which moral and spiritual education can occur. However, assemblies have also been described as a nightmare (Roberts 2000, 38). At least since the 1988 Education Reform Act and
the publication of the Department of Educations circular 1/94, the issue of
legal compliance has been a simmering controversy behind most recent
examinations of the subject (Department of Education [DofE] 1994). The
problems caused by the requirement of Section 7(1) of the 1988 Act for collective worship in school to be of wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian
character are well known (RE Council of England and Wales 1996, 22). As
*Corresponding author. Email: g.smith@chi.ac.uk
ISSN 0141-6200 print/ISSN 1740-7931 online
2013 Christian Education
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2011.649344
http://www.tandfonline.com
G. Smith and S. Smith
we write, Julian Huppert, a Liberal Democrat MP, has an Early Day Motion
in the House of Commons calling for the government to repeal the requirement for compulsory worship in schools and to encourage schools to hold
educational assemblies that will include all children (Huppert 2010). Some
will question the presuppositions underpinning Hupperts rhetoric. The point
is that most discussions of school assemblies are mired in the problems of
legal compliance. Other key issues, such as the ways in which assemblies
contribute to the moral and spiritual education of the child or the manner in
which they shape whole school values, are neglected. There is a signicant
concern that a very important aspect of school life lacks thorough examination because of the problems associated with circular 1/94.
In this article, we approach the topic of school assemblies from the perspective of their ethical content. The dominance of the compliance issue in
the literature means there must inevitably be some discussion of this complex dilemma. This we carry out in the rst section of the article. However
our main task is to investigate the ethical content of school assemblies
through the identication and analysis of the substantial material being communicated. This we undertake through the observation of a number of primary school assemblies in different types of schools. The emphasis on the
material being communicated is important because it was not our aim to
investigate either the intentions of the assembly leader or the perception and
reception of assembly content by pupils.
A description of the project and a discussion of the main methodological
issues encountered are presented in the second section of the article. This
includes the identication of schools suitable for the project, the construction
of the observation grid employed by the researchers, and its subsequent
deployment. The next section contains the analysis of the ndings. In the article, we argue that what was taught in the assemblies we observed should most
accurately be identied as a type of virtue ethics.1 The ethical content focused
on desired character or personality traits rather than either moral values or religious beliefs. Further, the communication of virtues was achieved when supported by cultural or religious resources, such as stories, hymns or times of
prayer and spiritual reection. In one instance, when we observed the communication of a moral value without the deployment of either cultural or religious
supporting resources, we concluded that this event was more appropriately
described as a lesson. The distinction between what can be described as a lesson and what is appropriately called an assembly is an important nding of
our research. In particular, it has implications for the nature of the moral discourse which surrounds schools. A values discourse differs from a virtue discourse in that the latter makes more explicit the need for ethics to be located
within a tradition. The intention of a values language is to transcend discrete
traditions for the sake of dialogue and universalism. The distinction led us to
conclude by investigating the dispositions discourse employed by Birmingham
Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education (SACRE).
In the nal section, we return to a discussion of the question of legal

compliance and what the ndings contribute to this problem. The idea of
dispositions as deployed by the Birmingham SACRE in its development of
the primary and secondary religious education curriculum is allied to our
research and aids this debate (Birmingham SACRE 2007). The experience
in Birmingham and our own ndings offer a way to move the currently
moribund discussion of assemblies in new and fruitful directions.
The issue of legal compliance: literature review
There is a limited amount of literature detailing or discussing critically the
content of primary school assemblies and in particular a paucity of analysis
of the ethical content of these important events in school life. The majority
of the literature, which is not contemporaneous, focuses on the issue of compliance with the law. The most important recent work, sponsored by the All
Saints Trust and produced by the RE Council of England and Wales utilising
the resources of the Culham College Institute, stems from the mid-1990s and
was a follow-up to the publication of circular 1/94 (RE Council of England
and Wales 1996). Prior to this, John Hull had outlined the problems of
including worship in schools when society was becoming more secular and
pluralist (Hull 1975). Hulls analysis summarises the position of many in the
education profession, although his work has been challenged from a philosophical perspective by Felderhof (1999, 2000). Hull has also worked on the
problems generated by the 1988 Education Reform Act and then circular
1/94. The RE Councils report made use of Hulls analysis in its attempt to
undo the perceived damage of circular 1/94. The difculty for our project
was that these important documents focus on the issue of legal compliance.
They do not examine the question of ethical content. Some more recent work
has steered away from the issue of legal compliance. In particular we are
thinking of the research by Jeanette Gill. However, her study also did not
focus on questions of ethical content (Gill 2000, 2004). In fact, there appears
to be little or no recent research into questions of what ethical ideas and
methodological presuppositions inform primary school assemblies. This
absence led us to decide to investigate the substantial nature and content of
ethical ideas and methodologies communicated by primary school assembly
leaders. We recognised that this research question was broad and in the discussion of our methodology, we indicate how we sought to limit its scope so
we had manageable material. However, its breadth was also unavoidable
because of the lack of prior discussion on which we could build.
Investigating the ethical content of primary school assemblies:
methodology
The selection of schools was initially problematic. A large number of
schools, perhaps more than might have been expected, turned down our
request for a visit. This may well be because of a certain fearfulness on the
part of head teachers about the problem of legal compliance. Further, those
head teachers who did consent to our observations tended to have some personal commitment to the issue. Our research question meant that we wanted
to observe more than one assembly in each of the schools visited so that we
could discern any consistent trends in the ethical content of the schools.
This meant schools had to consent to a series of visits, in each case nally
three per school. We also sought to visit different types of school to see
whether pupil numbers, religious afliation or socio-economic location
would impact on the assemblies ethical content. This produced a number of
variables and so we limited our selection to urban schools to ensure the
research ndings were more manageable. We identied four schools that
illustrated each variable listed above. There would be little gained at this
stage in terms of our ndings by selecting a larger number of assemblies to
observe. A broader survey of assembly practice would lack the depth of our
observations whilst not adding to what might be argued about the ndings.
There is value in a more in-depth study through case studies of particular
schools although this would lack the comparative element we were able to
introduce. A case study approach would produce the most signicant data if
it could build on an in-depth survey of material such as we intended.
The schools were listed AD. School A was a Church of England aided
school. It is a small school with one-form intake in a prosperous area of the
city. School B is a community school in a different prosperous area of the
city. However, it is a much larger school with a three-form intake. School C
is an infant school again in a relatively wealthy area. This is an unusual
school because despite being a community school, the head teacher is a
committed Christian and the school was founded by a Christian denomination. School D is a small school with mixed age classes. This is in a very
deprived area of the city. The head is an acting head and the school has
only recently ceased to be categorised by Ofsted (2004) as under special
measures.
No special requests were made with regard to the type of assemblies to
be observed. The rather pragmatic criteria of what we encountered and what
could be attended in a series dictated the choices made. This said, a good
range was visited. We observed main school assemblies with visiting speakers, head teacher led assemblies to whole school and year groups, good
work assembly, song practice, house points assembly and attendance assembly. On one occasion, the invited leader withdrew at the last minute and so
the assembly observed was improvised almost on the spot. On each
occasion, the same two researchers observed the assemblies, made notes and
discussed their ndings afterwards.
The observational approach was semi-structured. Our inspiration was the
project which resulted in the book The moral life of schools (Jackson,
Boostrom, and Hansen 1993). This informed the methodology which was to
record in detail the data relevant to the research question through observation. The recorded data were then analysed and discussed by the researchers
without the use of formal coding. This mirrors the approach of Jackson
et al. and as they argue allows for the material to speak entirely for itself.
This was necessary because we did not have a good literature base on which
to build or series of ndings we could rene. By selecting a method which
achieved both some broad survey of different types of schools and assemblies as well as the depth that comes from repeated visits, we expect to
begin to ll this gap. This said, it has to be acknowledged that biases would
inuence the choice of what constituted an ethical point worthy of recording
(Cohen, Manion, and Morrison 2007, 396). So, at the beginning of the
observations, the researchers identied four quadrants which recognised the
interrelationship between religious content and moral values. There was an
expectation that some ethical content would be communicated as part of
religious, and in fact Christian, worship and some would be communicated
as moral values without an explicitly religious component. The ethics communicated through worship would be implicit and depend upon the theological material being allowed to speak for itself. Two axes were constructed;
one of which was concerned with religious content and one with moral content. This generated four quadrants which anticipated locating ethical content
in either: a religious quadrant, a moral values quadrant, a religious and
moral values quadrant or a no values and no religion quadrant. The employment of these categories raised two subsequent questions, namely what constituted religious content in the assembly context and then what was meant
by moral values.
The question of what constitutes religious belief in the assembly context
took us back to the issues raised by circular 1/94 and the Act of 1988 which
preceded it. In effect, the initial question was whether the religious content
of an assembly had to be an act of Christian worship. The requirement of
circular 1/94 for school assemblies is that all registered pupils attending a
maintained school should take part in daily collective worship (DofE 1994,
51).2 However, one of the anomalies of the requirement is that there is an
immediate recognition that worship that occurs in schools is of a different
order from worship that occurs in religious communities, particularly
churches. So the former is known as collective worship and the latter as corporate worship (DofE 1994, 57). Circular 1/94 then seeks to argue that the
worship that takes place in schools is still worship as is commonly recognised. However, it should not be denominational. This means the worship in
schools cannot be the same as any worship that actually happens in
churches because church worship must of its nature be denominational,
albeit with shared Christian roots (DofE 1994, 61). Further, the circular
allowed that the worship could include some non-Christian elements
thereby again distancing it from what usually actually occurs in local
churches (DofE 1994, 61). Finally, the circular requires that the worship
10
accord a special status to Jesus Christ. This christological remark is too

brief to constitute a theologically coherent statement or recognised expression of traditional Christian belief (DofE 1994, 63). What these requirements
amount to is the recognition that what happens in schools is of a different
order from what happens in churches. In effect, the meaning of the language
is stretched so that what happens in school assemblies can be described as
collective worship even though it has only limited similarity to worship in
churches. The reasons for this anomaly appear to be political. The report
Collective Worship in Schools suggested that Conservative ministers were
receptive to pressure from lobbying groups who wanted more Christianity
taught in schools (RE Council England and Wales 1996, 20). This would
coincide with the Christian emphasis which Margaret Thatcher brought to
her political activities (Smith 2007). In terms of what guidance we might
receive when seeking to identify a religious component to a school assembly, the notion of collective worship is of little or no value because of these
anomalies. For this reason, we have refrained from using the language of
collective worship and remained with the more traditional and apposite
notion of school assembly as it accurately refers to the distinct event which
occurs in schools. We also turned away from the discussions in circular 1/
94 to the recommendations of the RE Council of England and Wales consultation published in 1998 for help in dening the religious components of
school assemblies (RE Council of England and Wales 1998). These recommendations are a better reection of what actually happens in schools.
Following the report of 1996, the RE Council of England and Wales led
a consultation which aimed to nd a way forward after the controversy of
circular 1/94. It is not necessary to explain the process in detail here. What
is important is that there was a majority consensus amongst Church and
educational professionals supporting a new approach for school assemblies.
This included the following two characteristics:
The material used in such assemblies might draw upon prayers, readings from
scriptures and other material with a spiritual and moral dimension, together with
contributions from those taking assemblies.
The offering of opportunities for participation would range from personal worship to quiet reection. (RE Council of England and Wales 1998, no page number)
These two characteristics guided the identication and analysis of religious

elements in assemblies. In effect, we aimed to record any employment of
religious stories, times of quiet and reection and the singing of songs and
hymns. However, it should be noted that we did not observe an example of
a religious story being employed which was allowed to speak entirely for
itself. In some way, the religious story was interpreted so that it was
11
comprehensible to the pupils. For example, in school A, a diocesan ofcer

led an assembly on the Christian festival of Pentecost. This entailed telling
the story with the help of children who acted as the disciples. The speaker
emphasised the change in the disciples from their fear whilst hiding in the
upper room to their bravery in going out and preaching the message of
Christianity. At the very end of the assembly, the speaker said that with
Gods help we can face difcult challenges. The main message of the
assembly had been that we should be brave rather than fearful. This fullled
a good pedagogical aim in that it engaged the interest of the children and is
a commendable message. However, it is not the focus of traditional
Christian teaching about Pentecost. Methodologically, we recorded that a
scriptural story had been employed although we also noted that it had a
virtue ethics hermeneutic applied by the assembly leader, in this case
relating to courage.
The denition of what constitutes moral values was derived from the
Statement of values by the National Forum for Values in Education and the
Community (National Curriculum). The details of how the statement was
constructed and tested have been described in other places, of which a good
concise summary is found in Yates (2000, 29). The reason for selecting this
statement was its importance to the national curriculum. It was cited as a
key document in the 1999 national curriculum as well as being the statement
referred to in the rst pages listing the aims of the then proposed new
national curriculum of 2010 (National Curriculum draft).3 The statement lists
four key values: the self, that is, we value ourselves as unique human
beings capable of spiritual, moral, intellectual and physical growth and
development; relationships, we value others for themselves rather than for
any function they might perform and we value relationships as fundamental
to the development of ourselves and others, and to the good of community;
society, we value truth, freedom, justice, human rights, the rule of law, and
collective effort for the common good and families are identied as the
basis of society; the environment, we value the environment, both natural
and shaped by humanity, as the basis of life and a source of wonder and
inspiration. Each area of value is followed by a list of the implications of
these values for behaviour. The statement argues that the values listed here
have authority because they represent a consensus in society, that is schools
and teachers can have condence that there is general agreement in society
upon these values. This claim is based upon a MORI poll conducted on
behalf of the Forum which surveyed adults, schools and community groups.
A majority stated they agreed with these values.
There are some problems with the statement of values. For a start, it
could be argued that the values are so general and anodyne that most people
are bound to agree with them. This is to a certain extent true and could well
explain the MORI result. More signicantly, and illustrating that not
everyone agrees with them, Paul Yates has argued that they reect a
12
neoconservative privileging of the individual over the social because they

begin from ideas of the self before moving to the social (Yates 2000, 29).
This Yates (2000, 29) criticises as being contrary to sociological or psychological sense. Yates is also suspicious that the statement is a centralising
attempt to impose a set of values rather than a sincere reection of what
society already agrees are it main values. Yatess suspicions are to some
degree founded. However, as a guide the statement aided the initial process
of identifying and analysing the moral values communicated in school
assemblies.
As the research progressed, it became apparent that the distinction
between values and virtues was a central issue. What we observed was more
accurately described as virtue ethics rather than values. The ndings raised
the question of how they might be distinguished. Halstead and Pike
effectively draw out the distinction.
Values are principles and fundamental convictions which act as justications
for activity in the public domain and as general guides to private behaviour;
they are enduring beliefs about what is worthwhile, ideals for which people
strive and broad standards by which particular practices are judged to be
good, right, desirable or worthy of respect. Examples of values are justice,
equality, freedom, fairness, happiness, security, truth. Values can therefore be
distinguished from related and sometimes overlapping terms like virtues
(which are personal qualities or dispositions like truthfulness, generosity, courage, loyalty or kindness) and attitudes (which are acquired tendencies or predispositions to behave in a predictable manner, such as openness, tolerance,
respect and freedom from prejudice). (Halstead and Pike 2006, 24)4
The key point which Halstead and Pike make, and was apparent in the
observations, is the emphasis on the personal nature of virtues. Virtues are
comments about personality and character. When good virtues are being
taught, then what happens is that certain behaviours and dispositions are recommended. By contrast, moral values are impersonal, they are concerned
with the foundational beliefs and ideals which might shape behaviour but are
not descriptions of that behaviour. Moral values are likely to be more abstract
and more closely tied to particular ideologies. In our observations, it became
necessary as the research progressed to replace the values axis with a virtues
axis. This will become a key nding as a result of the research project.
The results of the research do not permit wide-ranging and general statements about the nature of assemblies in English primary schools. This was
not our intention in constructing the research project. Instead, the value of
the ndings is that they generate a new perspective on the stagnating discussion of primary school assemblies as well as opening up avenues for further
research from which more general conclusions might be drawn. It also offers
some insight into the moral education occurring in some primary schools
again as a springboard for further analysis of this important question.
13
The dominance of virtues: research ndings

The schools were approached with the expectation that they would be teaching some recognisable type of moral values as described in the National
Forums statement. This would in some instances be juxtaposed or combined with religious beliefs. What was surprising was that this was not the
case and that what we observed was mainly the teaching of virtue ethics. It
had been reported anecdotally that teachers were generally unaware of the
National Forum statement. The seeming irrelevance of the statement was
conrmed by the ndings of the project. The main focus of almost all the
assemblies was some type of virtue ethics. For example, we observed two
assemblies in school C which communicated ideas about courage. One featured a story without religious content which described the bravery of a
young woman called Grace Darling. She had assisted her father in the rescue of some sailors during a storm. Her courage was stressed. The second
told the story of how Guru Gobind Singh founded the order of Khalsa.
What was commended in the story was the bravery of the volunteers who
offered their lives to the Guru at his request. A second example involved
the commendation of personal loyalty. In school B, an assembly to key
stage one pupils discussed friendship. This stressed the importance of being
loyal to friends even when faced with the attractive possibility of new and
more exciting friendships. It was interesting to note that the assembly was
very interactive and, when questioned, the pupils were well aware of what
was appropriate behaviour regarding friendships. Another virtue we saw
being taught was responsibility. The teaching of responsibility was more
complex as the main focus of the assembly was care for animals. The
assembly was in school B and featured a presentation by pupils. They
explained that the school council had decided to focus on the plight of the
red squirrel as an issue of concern. The problems confronted by red squirrels
would be publicised and money raised would help this endangered species
by funding sanctuaries. At rst sight, it might appear that the moral value of
care for animals was being communicated, however, the teacher leading the
assembly was more concerned with the process by which the topic was
selected rather than the topic itself. The teacher emphasised the democratic
nature of pupil representation on the school council and the responsibility of
all pupils to follow the councils lead as the pupils on the council were their
representatives. What this meant was a stress on responsibility, as an offshoot of democratic representation, more than a concern for red squirrels.
Such a stress fullled the pedagogic aim of making the assembly relevant
and meaningful to the pupils who would understandably probably not have
a great deal of empathy for red squirrels.
The virtues communicated were not always taught in the main part of
the assembly. In school A, one pupil was commended because he was
collecting books to be sent to South Africa in support of adult literacy
14
programmes. The virtue of generosity was given substantial praise. Often there
were notices before or after the main presentation. Again these contained
messages that certain virtues were desirable, such as hard work, generosity
and kindness. In school D, we observed a weekly award which was made to a
pupil who had been kind to another pupil in a social setting.
One further surprising and important observation made was that the virtues being communicated in school D were different from those in schools
A, B and C. This was as much to do with the tone and emphasis of the
teaching of the virtues as their specic content although it included substantial content. School D had what it called ve key values which were prominently displayed in the entrance to the school. These were: persistence,
resilience, you can do it, condence and organisation. One assembly we
observed was a house point assembly in which points were distributed to
house members for hard work and then added to a chart. The assembly preceded a family tness day and ended before the day was ready to begin.
This meant the assembly leader had to improvise talking with the children
prior to the arrival of physical education (PE) staff. The assembly leader
talked about the importance of persistence, resilience and a you can do it
attitude as pupils approached each tness task. The assembly was interactive
and we observed how the children were well aware of the virtues being
advocated. Another assembly observed in school D was a good work assembly. Pupils who had worked hard were called to the front and a few sentences were read describing their achievement. This in itself is not that
unusual and hard work is a virtue commended in most, if not all, schools.
However what was unusual was the way in which the narrative of the
pupils achievement included some aspect of persistence, the overcoming of
difculties and a change of attitude and manner. It was not just that hard
work had been undertaken but that hard work had been managed in what
were very trying circumstances requiring resilience, persistence and more
than usual fortitude. When good work was commended in schools A and C,
the hard work was praised but the qualities of persistence and resilience
were not mentioned. One further assembly is relevant to this point. In school
A, the last minute assembly observed had as its main substance, a report of
a school trip the day before to watch para-Olympic athletes training and
competing in events. The report of the visit stressed the remarkable achievement of the athletes to overcome their disability and compete in the events.
The high standard of the athletes was mentioned. At this point, it might be
expected that virtues such as persistence and resilience would come to the
fore, however, this was not the case. Instead the emphasis was on the expectation that if you work hard then you will succeed. There was a more condent and positive understanding of the rewards of hard work than the
emphasis on persistence and resilience would suggest. This is a matter of
tone but it was a signicant difference between the assemblies witnessed in
the schools.
15
Our impression from these observations is that the virtues that are most
relevant to children are dictated to some degree by the socio-economic location of the school. We cannot claim that this is so in all cases because our
sample is limited. In fact, at best it can be said that this is an area requiring
further investigations. However the hypothesis is that different virtues are
taught with different emphases depending on the location of the school. In
particular, a stress on perseverance and resilience was observed in a school
in a low socio-economic area that was not apparent in schools in high
socio-economic areas.
The predominant nding of the project has been that what we
observed in school assemblies was the communication of some form of
virtues ethics. The exception to this was an assembly observed in school
B. This was on the subject of the environment and outlined the ways in
which human activities were having a detrimental effect on the planet.
The idea of a carbon footprint was introduced and pupils were asked to
think about ways in which this could be reduced. The main focus of the
assembly was on environmental damage and its causes. It was difcult to
identify any virtue being communicated. In fact it could well be argued
that the assembly was values orientated in that it related to the fourth of
the National Forums set of values, namely the environment. However,
what was interesting was that independently we both came to the conclusion that the event was more like a lesson that an assembly. In fact it
could best be described as a lesson to introduce a new topic. The assembly raised the question of what distinguishes an assembly from a lesson
and, related to this, the difference between moral values and virtues. The
latter we discussed above and so we focus here on the difference between
a lesson and assembly.
From our observations, we identied two important components which
help distinguish an assembly from a lesson. When these were both well
deployed, the experience was of an assembly. If both were absent then it
was more like a lesson. The rst component is the focus on virtues rather
than values. In the observations, one way to distinguish between an assembly and the one example of what looked like a lesson was that the assemblies taught virtues whilst the lesson focussed on a moral value. In the
example above, the value presented was care for the planet. The likely concurrent virtue might be either generosity to future generations or personal
responsibility. However, these and other virtues were absent.
The second key component we observed was the use of cultural and religious resources in support of the teaching of ethical virtues. The most common example of this was the telling of stories from sacred texts or about
important religious gures. One example was an assembly in school A
which told two stories about Martin Luther King Jr. Examples are also given
above, including Grace Darling, and such stories were notably absent in the
assembly that looked like a lesson. In addition, and also very important, is
16
the use of songs and hymns. This was apparent in schools A and C which
appeared to have a tradition of singing songs and hymns. The lyrics were
well-known by the pupils. These lyrics referred to God and often to Jesus.
We heard the children sing about the love of God, the saving work of Jesus
and Gods work in Creation. In school C, the stories used in the assemblies
did not always have a religious content, however, the use of familiar songs
and hymns, together with a time of prayer which ended with the word
Amen, meant that the experience was of an assembly. In school D, the cultural and religious supporting material was missing although virtues were
being taught. This led to the experience being somewhere between a lesson
and an assembly. The event clearly was not a lesson, the absence of academic content and the emphasis on virtues ensured that, however, neither
was it a well-conducted assembly because there was no religious or cultural
material employed which might develop the spiritual aptitudes of the pupils.
By contrast, the song practice assembly witnessed in school C would probably have helped with the spiritual development of children even though
there was no substantial religious or cultural story.
Virtues and the problem of compliance: discussion
Although we have steered away from the question of legal compliance, the
dominance of this debate in current discussions means that one nal question is what do the ndings say about this issue? The compliance debate is
restricted by the conict between political will and professional practice.
Not surprisingly, politicians do not want to engage with the highly controversial subject that would be the removal of the requirement for Christian
worship in schools. This would translate into debates about English identity.
Neither the Left nor Right wants to be portrayed as the party that removed
an essential plank of English identity, namely its Christian heritage. But on
the other side, teachers do not want to be responsible for any form of worship. They are not trained as religious worship leaders and many, if not
most, would regard religious observance as a personal rather than professional matter. Collective worship may not be the same as corporate worship
but it is still worship and, in an age that is plural, it is an alien practice with
potential to do harm. So a stalemate exists. Schools have to nd a practical
solution to the stalemate.
The working solution adopted by a number of schools, and certainly
schools which do assemblies well, is to teach ethical virtues utilising supporting religious and cultural resources. This is a creative solution. As the work of
the Birmingham SACRE on moral dispositions shows, virtue ethics has the
capacity to garner support from across the religious spectrum (Birmingham
SACRE 2007). Philip Barnes has argued the Birmingham solution is novel
and innovative and our point is that it can work as well in relation to assemblies as it can to the RE curriculum (Barnes 2007, 2008). The history of vir-
17
tues, reaching back to Plato, means that they have the ability to transcend
belief systems whilst also being welcomed by religious adherents and political
ideologues. The latter would include those who want to describe themselves
as secular or liberal. The promotion of courage or loyalty or generosity does
not presume a particular set of beliefs and in fact can be applicable in a range
of religions or ideologies. In many ways, they are a far better solution than
moral values which can be tied to political ideologies. In other words, virtues
seem to transcend the problems of pluralism and secularism in a way values
cannot. They are uncontroversial whilst permitting reference to religious and
secular beliefs. This makes them a good working solution for schools.
The aim of this article has been to describe and discuss the results of a
small scale research project investigating the ethical content of primary
school assemblies. The main nding was that dominant ethical approach
was one of virtue ethics. This worked well when supported by religious and
cultural resources. Schools which adopt this approach have found a way of
coping with the problems thrown up the Education Reform Act of 1988 and
the subsequent circular 1/94. However it is also clear that more research
should be undertaken in this eld and that one important and fruitful path is
the question of how the virtues taught relate to the socio-economic context
of the school.
Notes
1. The distinction between virtues and values is very important and is developed
as the article progresses. There is a large philosophical literature on the identity
of virtue ethics of which the key contemporary text is MacIntyre (2007),
although we recognise some have argued that MacIntyres A short history of
ethics is in fact primary. It is not our intention to discuss the Homeric or Thomist development of virtue ethics to arrive at a workable denition for the sake
of the analysis, rather we employ the pragmatic distinction between personal
attributes or character traits (virtues) such as Aristotle discusses and principles
(values) which are ideologically informed and seek to shape action. Halstead
and Pike draw out this distinction and we discuss their analysis below.
2. The references here are to paragraphs in the circular and not page numbers.
3. The National Curriculum draft was fully prepared and ready to be implemented
when the 2010 General Election was called. The website provided schools with
materials to begin preparing for the new curriculum. After the General Election,
the new government decided not to go ahead with the changes. So at the time
of our research, the expectation was that the statement by the National Forum
would remain inuential. In fact, by default it has because the 1999 curriculum
remains in place.
4. Italics in the original.
Notes on contributors
Graeme Smith is senior lecturer in Practical Theology at the University of
Chichester. His research interests include practical theology, social and political
theology and ethics. He is editor of the journal Political Theology and author of A
18
short history of secularism (IB Tauris, 2008). He has written a number of articles in
the eld of social and political theology.
Susannah Smith is lecturer in Education at the University of Birmingham. Her
research interests include early years literacy and she has written articles on literacy
and gender.
References
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