NEW
FRIENDS
By Jill Fuller
Suitable
for Whole School
Aim
To help pupils
recognize the skills needed to make new friends.
Preparation
and materials
Prepare a situation from your
own experience when you have been a stranger and a 'new face' in an established
community. Make sure you can describe it vividly and be ready to explore the feelings
around the situation and the choices about behaviour.
Assembly
- Share with pupils a situation
when you have been a stranger, perhaps at a party or a meeting. Describe the scene:
people all talking with each other, appearing to know each other, sharing jokes
and laughter. Some people are already playing a game of cards, or tackling some
work together, while you are standing alone, observing - what they are wearing,
how they are behaving - and feeling 'out of it'.
- Ask the children how they
would have felt in the situation: awkward, afraid, nervous, left out, excluded,
uncertain, ignored, angry, excited, worried that the laughter is directed at you?
- Ask the children to think
what might happen next. What advice would they give you? Discuss the possibilities
of what you might do. Leave? Sit in a corner alone? Stand at the edge of a group
and hope someone will notice you? Approach a group and wait for a good moment
to introduce yourself and ask if you can join them? Push into a group and start
talking at once?
- Now ask them to imagine
that they are one of the people already in the room. When they notice the newcomer,
what would they do? Ask the new person to join in? Ignore them and continue talking
with their own friends? Hope they will go away? Expect someone else to look after
them?
- Help the children to identify
some of the problems of being new. The other people may have different rules about
behaviour, different ways of doing things, different jokes. It may take time to
understand this. Some things may need to be explained to prevent misunderstandings.
- Remind them that Jesus,
the most important leader for Christians, showed by the way he lived that caring
and accepting others is important. He wanted to create a community of friends.
He gave a command: 'This is my commandment to you: love one another' (John 15.17).
Time
for reflection
At the beginning of a new
term there may be many new faces in our community. In a moment of quiet, let us
reflect together on how we can each care for one another and help each other to
make friends.
Dear God,
Jesus showed us the importance of looking after our friends.
He introduced lots of new people to each other
and helped them to get to know and learn from one another.
At the start of this new school year,
please help us to be friendly and helpful to everyone.
Amen.
Song
'When I needed
a neighbour' (Come and Praise, 65).
Curriculum
links
- Literacy: Stories and
poems which explore issues around friendship.
- RE: Biblical stories on
the theme of friendship, e.g. Jesus chooses some friends to share his work - the
calling of the disciples; four people take their friend to Jesus to be healed
- the healing of the man lowered through the roof.
- Geography: Map work showing
where my friends live.
- Art: A portrait gallery
of my friends.
- Music: Elgar's Enigma
Variations - a set of orchestral variations, each being a musical portrait
of someone known to the composer. Collecting popular tunes on the theme of friendship,
e.g. 'With a little help from my friends', theme tunes to programmes such as Neighbours
and Friends.
- PSHE: Making a book of
ideas of the qualities which make a good friend.
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