Before Christmas the Evangelical Alliance, which claims to represent more than a million churchgoers from a dozen denominations, called for changes in the law to make school worship less frequent but more authentic. These proposals have caused a massive row. Colin Hart, director of the Christian Institute, has accused the EA of further marginalising Christianity in British education and of supplying secularist headteachers with further ammunition to defy the law.

Trevor Cooling, spokesperson for Evangelical Alliance, argues that at a time when many headteachers are ignoring the law schools should work on producing “two quality acts of collective worship each week”. This debate over “quality versus quantity” is an important one with which I have sympathy. It is very difficult for schools to produce good acts of collective worship each day, since they rarely have the resources.

I have less sympathy with the Evangelical Alliance’s second suggestion - that participation should be made more voluntary with parents allowed to opt their children into, rather than out of, worship. The EA says that, “To expect (pupils) to lead or engage in praise and prayer to God is simply not feasible. ” But the law does not dictate that pupils should “engage in praise and prayer to God”. It is about time that attention was given to a more careful reading of the law. The current legislation is not half as extreme and unworkable as it has been made out to be. Furthermore, those representatives of major churches who are calling for a broader definition of collective worship are misreading the actual words of Department for Education Circular 194 on collective worship.

Three phrases in Circular 194 have worried headteachers. First, it clearly states that the aim of collective worship is “to provide the opportunity for pupils to worship God”. Many have commented that such an aim is inappropriate within an educational context. However, it should be noted that the law does not say that pupils should or must worship God. Instead, collective worship provides pupils with the opportunity to worship if they wish.

Many readers will recall with horror their own experiences of “assembly”. A popular view of past acts of worship is of a moral chat with notices, a hymn and a prayer.

However, things have changed . Collective worship is potentially a very different animal. The law is not asking pupils to “believe in 10 things before breakfast”. It is not about imposing religion on society. Its main concern is to provide opportunities - yes, to worship if pupils so wish, but also “to consider spiritual and moral issues and to explore their own beliefs”.

The Education Reform Act 1988 makes it quite clear that each act of collective worship has to be appropriate for the pupils involved. This means that a wide range of responses should be possible, from awareness that a particular belief is important to Christians, Muslims and so on to adoration of God. In such a way pupils should feel free to come out of worship and say, “that was interesting but I don’t agree with it”.

Second, the circular’s definition of the word “worship” has come under sharp fire. Worship is “concerned with reverence or veneration paid to a divine being or power”. The circular does not say that pupils should venerate a divine being or power, nor does it presuppose the belief in a supreme being, as some critics have stated.

Instead, pupils will be “concerned with” the issue of reverence or veneration of a divine being and “worship in schools will necessarily be of a different character from worship amongst a (faith) group with beliefs in common”. The words “concerned with” point to the subject matter under exploration, and not involvement in an act of adoration. Pupils are to be left free “to explore their own beliefs”.

Third, the circular states that Christian collective worship should accord “a special status to Jesus Christ”. The legislation gives a lot more freedom than has often been claimed. While the Act says that collective worship is to be “wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian ‘character”’, this does not dictate that it should be uniquely Christian. “It is open to a school to have acts of worship which contain elements drawn from a number of different faiths. ” Christians do accord special status to Jesus Christ. It does not necessarily follow that pupils are to do the same.

This clarification does not solve all the problems, but it does address the obvious difficulties faced by many headteachers.

Chris Wright is co-ordinator of collective worship at Peers School, Oxford.