Doors of opportunity
Make the most of every opportunity! - Start of term assembly
by Rebecca Parkinson (revised, originally published in 2012)
Suitable for Key Stage 2
Aims
To help the children to see the importance of taking opportunities when they are given to them.
Preparation and materials
- You will need the images listed below and the means to display them. If the images are not available then any pictures of doors found in books will be suitable.
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Assembly
- Explain to the children that in a moment you are going to show them some pictures. All the pictures have the same subject.
Say that before you show the pictures, you want the children to guess what the pictures are of. Give clues to indicate that the pictures are all of different doors, for example:
– I can see three (change as appropriate) of these from where I am standing.
– the things I am thinking of are usually made from wood.
– Mr Smith is sitting near to one. - Explain to the children that all the doors they are going to see are rather mysterious.
Show each door in turn and ask the children to describe what they imagine they will find if they were to open the door. Explain that there are no correct answers; you simply want them to be as imaginative as possible. - Explain that most of the doors we pass through are familiar to us. We know what to expect when we go through our classroom door or the front door of our home or our bedroom door. However, in our lives there are other doors that we all experience. These are often called ‘doors of opportunity’.
Ask the children if they know what a ‘door of opportunity’ might be. Explain that we all get opportunities to try new things.
– It may be that we are starting a new school year and have the opportunity to get to know a new teacher.
– It may be that we get the chance to try a new sport or skill or activity.
– It may be that we get the opportunity to meet new people and make new friends. - Explain that each new opportunity we are given is like a door. We can choose to keep the door shut and not walk forward and pass through it – we can choose not to take the opportunity given to us. Or we can say ‘yes’ to the opportunity. To say ‘yes’ is like opening a door and walking through it to experience whatever the new opportunity has to offer.
Sometimes what we find on the other side may be difficult and we may decide that we don’t like it, but at least we have had a new experience to take with us into the rest of our lives. - This coming year will be full of new opportunities. Let us take the opportunities that come our way, and try lots of new things.
Time for reflection
Can you remember a time when you did something new? It may have been your first day at school, your first swimming lesson, the first time you tried to ride a bike without stabilizers.
How did you feel?
You probably felt a bit worried. Trying new things takes courage – you have to be brave enough to step forward and have a go even though you aren’t certain what will happen.
Why not make a decision that during this week you will try one thing that you have never done before? (Why not encourage the children to come to tell you if they manage!)
Prayer
Dear God,
thank you for all the opportunities we have in this world.
Please help us to have the courage always to try new things
and to take the opportunities that come our way.
Amen.
Song/music
‘One more step along the way’ (Come and Praise, 47)
