Worship at Harris School is an essential part of every day.Described as "outstanding" and possessing a "strong, distinctive Christian character" by denominational inspectors, the worship at Harris School seeks to glorify our Lord Jesus Christ through teaching students to "do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God."

Every student participates daily in collective worship in their tutor group and weekly with the entire school.Collective worship sets aside a time for reflection on their own lives and the world around them.Consisting of songs, prayers, input from students and multimedia sources, worship engages with students' lives in a relevant, contextual way.

In addition to the weekly and daily times of worship and reflection, Harris participates in whole-school worship six times a year at churches, chapels and for special occasions, at Coventry cathedral across Rugby and the Diocese of Coventry.These whole-school services follow the Anglican pattern of worship and combine the church calendar of Christian festivals with school-wide celebrations.Our chaplaincy offers unique spiritual support and opportunities for students to explore their faith in class, on special trips and in everyday life.

Harris maintains special relationships with our foundation parishes:

• St. Andrew's, Rugby
• St. Matthew's, Rugby
• St. Mark's, Bilton
• St. Peter's, Dunchurch

We are proud of the quality of Christian education at Harris School, and consider it a privilege to be a Church of England school.

Last Monday marked a special milestone for Harris School. Every four years we combine a visit to the cathedral with a whole school photograph. Both events are very special reminders of our distinctive difference and we hope they will be lasting reminders for staff and students alike. The focus of our cathedral service was to mark out inclusion as a member of the Cross of Nails community and to receive our own cross of Nails from Bishop John.

The service began in the ruins of the old cathedral, destroyed by bombing in 1940. We moved on to the wonderful glass West

Screen with a reading that described the figures featured in the glass. Finally, we moved in to the new cathedral to complete

the service and receive our Cross of Nails. This movement through the site emphasised the transition that the cathedral

community had made in moving from sorrow and anger over the bombing to reconciliation and peace. Bishop John talked about

how Coventry Cathedral is now an internationally recognised centre for peace and reconciliation-working across the world to

replace conflict with peace. We are proud to be that focus for peace and reconciliation within Rugby and to benefit from contacts

with other centres across the world. Of course the school is now much larger than when we last visited the cathedral four years ago. Transporting more than 900 people there and back was a major logistical exercise, - I counted 15 double decker buses and coaches parked in Overslade Lane on my return. I am extremely grateful to all the staff who organised and supervised

the morning. It was glorious to see the cathedral filled by the Harris community. Our students behaved impeccably-

even when the sound in the cathedral ruins was poor. Several cathedral staff commented on our students involvement in the whole service with none of the fidgeting they normally observe in a large group of children. The event was a very good example of how team work can produce extraordinary results. We had hoped to mark the event with a photograph of the cathedral ruins. This proved to be impossible. However, with the wonders of modern technology, the photograph taken in the school grounds will be produced with the ruins as the background.

Finally we were very blessed by the weather. We had dry weather for both morning and afternoon events in a period when I can't remember when it last didn't rain for 24 hours!