Plan an assembly

Why am I taking an assembly?

Spiritual development

You’re contributing to the school’s programme of spiritual development, offering a vital service.

Connecting church and school

You’re representing the church, both locally and more generally, and developing the crucial link and relationship between the two.

Challenging students’ perceptions and ideas about faith, spirituality and values

You’ll be able to get student’s thinking about some of the important questions of life, and share how you see things as a Christian. You may also be able to break down prejudice and assumptions about Christians.

Introducing yourself

Students will hopefully not only remember your name, but how interesting and funny you were too! Expect to find it a lot easier to talk to pupils informally around a school once you have done a good assembly. Remember that there are lots of teachers present in an assembly, and for many of them this will be one of the few times they see you ‘in action’. It’s a great opportunity to make a good impression!

Gaining credibility

Assemblies are a good starting point for further work in a school. Prove yourself in this arena, and you may find it possible to contribute into other areas of school life.

It’s easy to assume an assembly is a chance to tell a group of young people your beliefs and views, and to persuade them how right you are, but this doesn’t really do justice to what a good assembly can and should be about. You’ll certainly want to share your views and beliefs, but in the context of enabling the students to think about theirs. However passionate you are about your faith, and however convinced you are that you’re right, an assembly is not a context to recruit converts: it’s a place for students to reflect, explore and engage
not just as individuals but also as a school community.

The best assemblies are the ones that get students thinking and engaging with a topic for themselves. In other words, it’s not about telling the students something, it’s about giving them some space to reflect and engage with important topics. Think of yourself as a facilitator more than a speaker.

Choosing a topic

Sometimes you’ll be given a topic for an assembly, which can be very specific (Remembrance Day, Christmas) or incredibly broad (Love, Happiness, Future, Feelings). Or you may have a free choice. Either way, you’ll need to think carefully about the specific issues you’re going to tackle. If you assembly is only 8 to 10 minutes, there’s very little time to cover more than a few thoughts and it’s easy to forget this in planning and end up preparing something much too grand and detailed for the short time available.

One of the easiest ways to narrow down your subject is to reduce the topic to a single question that you’re going to address. Doing this not only gives you a much clearer focus, it also helps students take a single clear point away from the assembly. Of course, there are many questions you could ask about a topic, so it’s a matter of choosing the one you think will work the best.

So, for example:

• ‘Remembrance Day’ could become ‘Do you believe in anything strongly enough to make a stand for it?’
• ‘Christmas’ could become ‘What present would make you the happiest?’
• ‘Love’ could become ‘What makes love last?’
• ‘Happiness’ could become ‘What three things would guarantee you a happy life?’
• ‘Future’ could become ‘What would you like to be like in 10 years time?’
• ‘Feelings’ could become ‘Is anger always wrong?’
• ‘‘Friendship’ could become ‘Who would you call your best friend?’
• ‘Self esteem’ could become ‘What do you do when you feel low about yourself?’

Planning the content

The next stage is to begin to gather possible content for your assembly. You’ll only have time for a few elements, but pull together what you can find. It may help to note down what you have under three key headings. A good assembly will generally include all three of these at some point.

Visual illustrations

Standing on your own at the front of a bare school hall, having a visual illustration can be a huge help. It might be:

• a prop you hold… anything from a tin can to a box of chocolates!
• a picture or illustration you hold up
• a picture up on a screen using an overhead or media projector
• a film clip
• or anything else imaginative and different!

Participation

Assemblies are not the time to play a massive game of Bulldog, and participation from 200 students sitting in rows may seem difficult, but you can still get everyone involved.

• asking a question that students have to think about themselves or discuss with a partner sitting next to them
• using volunteers at the front to help with an illustration
• prepared input, using art work, drama or written work prepared by a group of students beforehand
• instant reaction, getting some students to respond to an idea or question immediately before or during an assembly, like a hands up poll.

Story

“The universe is made up of stories not atoms.” (Muriel Rukeser). Stories are the way we communicate so much of ourselves and our beliefs. A good assembly will nearly always have a story in it: not just longer made-up stories, but simple things that have happened to you too. A story might take a few minutes to tell or just a few seconds, it might be personal or taken from someone else’s life. It could be told or acted out, or even listened to on CD.

Once you have a question to work with, try listing down any possible content under these three sections. If any of them are empty, you have some work to do to find something to include.

Reflection

A good assembly will include some time and space for students to reflect on what they’ve seen and heard, applying it to their own lives and experiences. This could include a time of quiet, with or without a question for students to consider, some music, a slideshow of pictures or questions. The reflective part of an assembly is the point where students have the opportunity to say to themselves ‘what does this mean to me?’

Where to find content

You’ll find plenty of links here at schoolswork.co.uk to help you track down good illustrations and ideas, plus you can check out our Resource Toolkit or even post a request for help on the community blog.