Secondary: Current Assemblies

STICKS - STRENGTH IN NUMBERS

By Oliver Harrison

Suitable for Key Stage 3


Aim

To show that many together are stronger than when separated and acting individually.

Preparation and materials

• You will need a number of even length/size wooden sticks (e.g. cocktail sticks, wooden skewers, lolly sticks – cook shops or craft shops should have these). You can also do this assembly with strips of paper/card, multiplying them and seeing how many can be torn at once, but sticks work best. You will also need a phone book.
• You might like to download ‘Let’s work together’ by Roxy Music.
• Note: Rehearse this carefully first so you know what to expect and how many sticks you might need to use!

Assembly

1. Talk about strength in numbers: many together are stronger than when separated and taken individually. Give examples: talk about the principle of ‘greater than the sum of its parts’, e.g. two half cars won’t work but one whole one will. Contrast this to money, for example, where £2.50 times two is £5, and there’s no advantage to having money in notes or any number of coins as it’s worth the same.
   
2. Get out your sticks. Ask for one or more volunteers. See how many sticks they can break together (start with one, then five, then ten, etc.).
   
   Alternatively you can take a child from each year group and give an increasing number of sticks as they get older/bigger, then ask them all at once to snap their sticks.
   
   What’s the record/limit? Now try tearing the phone directory – it’s impossible.
   
3. Talk about strength in numbers. We have shown that many together are stronger than when separated and taken individually.
   
   Sometimes this can work to advantage in other ways: if we separate out something hard or difficult into its parts or break a big task into manageable chunks we can achieve things that might otherwise have been impossible. So if we tore a few pages out of the directory at a time, then tore those sections up, and so work through the directory …
   
4. Christians believe that God is three beings – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit – in one team or family. They also believe that God wants us to work together, to create a loving and harmonious school. And likewise, when you work together with your friends, in class on a set piece of work, or if you’re practising a sport like football, working together is the only way to achieve what you are aiming for.
   
5. When the many become one, we are all much stronger.

Time for reflection

Reflection

Play the song. You might like to fade it out after a couple of verses.

Let’s think about the teams and groups that we belong to.

How can we support each other actively this year?

When do we act to undermine the team spirit and feeling?

Prayer

‘No man is an island, entire of itself.’ (John Donne)

Thank you that we are better together than on our own.
Help us to consider others, to work in a constructive and helpful way, both with those people we meet around school and with those from our lives outside.

Amen.