With children having just started the new school year, BBC’s Songs of Praise wants to tap into the nation’s love and nostalgia for school assemblies, to discover what is the all-time favourite school assembly hymn. Members of the public are being asked to vote from a shortlist of 50 hymns and songs that are guaranteed to bring memories and melodies flooding back, before the vote closes at 6pm on Saturday 20 September. The results of the big vote will be announced in a special programme, The Big School Assembly Singalong, hosted by Aled Jones and The Rev. Kate Bottley, on BBC One at 1.15pm, on Sunday 23 November. Everyone can cast 5 votes here on the Songs of Praise website.
The Big School Assembly Singalong will be filmed with an audience of a thousand voices, singing along at the Victoria Hall in Bolton. They’ll be joined by a special choir, an on-stage band playing the instruments from school days and king of the assembly songs, James B. Partridge.
James B. Partridge is a music teacher who went viral after uploading school assembly songs to TikTok during lockdown. He played a packed-out set at Glastonbury and has toured the nation with his own primary school bangers show.
James B. Partridge said “I think the school assembly songs that we sang as children have a special place in our heart. Having that experience of singing together as a community really brings back the joy of those childhood days.”
“If you do have faith and are religious then you’re getting a lot out of these tunes because you’re in a room full of people like you, who might be at church, singing the hymns that you love and you’re thinking about the message of the songs. But if you don’t have faith at all, and you haven’t been to church in a long time, you’ll still feel the joy from the songs.”
Host Aled Jones said, “I went to a little primary school where my mum was the teacher. I was very lucky because every lesson was punctuated by music – in the middle of maths or geography, a guitar would come out and we’d bang out a hymn or a song. Every morning, we sat cross-legged on an uncomfortable wooden floor which doubled up as our gym and school canteen. We would sing the songs that don’t get sung in cathedrals, where I ended up, because they’re perhaps seen as child-like but actually that’s what brought me into religious music in the first place. There’s a joy in being able to sing these hymns that uplift you and make you feel out of this world, but back at school, it was even better to do it with mates. I think that these hymns and this collective singing just takes you back to an easier, simpler, safer time.”
Co-host, Kate Bottley added: “’My school assembly memories include me sitting in rows, cross legged on the hall floor, singing these songs before we could read. We sang from ‘Come and Praise’ and ‘Someone’s Singing, Lord.’ I recently bought a 1970s copy of ‘Someone’s Singing, Lord’ online because I remember it always being on the piano at school!
‘When I was older, I was a teacher and a Parish Priest, and people still stop my kids in the street and say, ‘We used to love your mum’s assemblies!’ The brilliant thing about assembly singing is it’s all about enthusiasm. Nobody ever tells children in assemblies that they can’t sing. Primary school age children just launch into it with gusto. Give me a wedding with kids at it any day of the week because I can’t usually get grown-ups to sing for love nor money!”
She added: “When I do weddings and funerals, and ask what they want to sing there, they tell me they don’t know any hymns. Then I remind them about the hymns they sang at school. As a parish priest, I was always mindful of the songs that I got the kids to sing in assembly at age 8 because I knew that those would be the songs they’d pick for their weddings!”
The Big School Assembly Singalong (1 x 35 minutes) is a brand-new, special event episode of BBC Songs of Praise, the iconic programme that has remained popular on BBC One for 64 years. A CTVC production, it is Executive Produced by Jacqueline Hewer and Series Produced by David Waters and Naomi Callan. The Commissioning Editor is Daisy Scalchi, BBC’s Head of Commissioning, Religion and Ethics. It will be broadcast at 1.15pm on BBC One, on Sunday 23 November 2025.
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