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All Change

An assembly from the Culham St Gabriel archive

Suitable for Whole School (Pri) - Church Schools

Aims

To consider that outward appearances don’t always show how people are feeling on the inside.

Preparation and materials

  • You will need dressing-up clothes including hats, scarves and dark glasses. Prior to the assembly, dress some volunteers in these disguises so that the remaining children can try to identify them during the assembly. This works well if members of staff are also disguised! The volunteers need to remain outside the room until the appropriate moment.

Assembly

  1. Makeovers seem to be very popular nowadays, whether it’s a new look for our homes, our gardens or ourselves. There are numerous programmes on the television that change the way people look or redesign people’s homes. Ask the children for examples of these.

  2. Ask the children what they could do if they wanted to change what they looked like. Examples could be having a new hairstyle, a new set of clothes and so on.
    Ask the following questions.

    - Do you feel different when your appearance is changed?
    - Why might you want to change the way you look?

  3. Invite your group of disguised volunteers to join you. See if the children can recognize their true identities. When the identities of the volunteers have been revealed, ask the volunteers if they felt different when they were wearing their disguises.

  4. Think about the simple ways in which, every day, we change how we look just by using different facial expressions. If appropriate, ask groups of children to demonstrate different emotions such as happy, sad, afraid and surprised.

  5. Explain that, in some ways, we all use masks to try to hide our feelings or show them. Discuss when and how the children try to hide their feelings. Think about why we might want to hide our feelings from others.

Time for reflection

Introduce the idea that, whatever our outward appearance, only we know who we truly are. Whatever face, or mask, we may be wearing, beneath it, we remain the same person. We know what we are really thinking and feeling. For Christians, this idea has special meaning, because they recognize that God knows them, too. They would say that it is God who knows what is truly in their hearts.

Prayer
Dear God,
Help us to know and love who we truly are.
As we grow and change, be with us, especially when things feel strange and different.
Thank you that you made us and love us.
Amen.

Song/music

‘God knows me’ (Come and Praise, 15)

Publication date: January 2021   (Vol.23 No.1)    Published by SPCK, London, UK.
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