A Great Year!

A letter to future me

by Hannah Knight

Suitable for Key Stage 2

Aims

To reflect upon the past year and consider how to make plans for the coming year.

Preparation and materials

• You will need to prepare some PowerPoint slides that show children participating in events and activities in school during the previous year.

Assembly

1. Show your pre-prepared PowerPoint slides.
   
   Point out that during 2023, many successful events happened at school and there are many things that the children should feel proud about. Go into detail about a few events that took place and explain how they affected the school.
   
   
2. Ask the children if they can think of any other school events that they particularly remember from last year.
   
   
3. Ask if anyone can remember any special world events that happened in 2023.
   
   Listen to a range of responses.
   
   Remind the children that every year is different from the previous one. This is what makes life so interesting. Imagine if every year was the same - how uninspiring that would be!
   
   We are all curious human beings, so it is important that we are always ready to learn new things, meet new people and have new experiences.
   
   
4. Tell the children that you are going to consider three statements that will help us to assess the previous year:
   
   - I made a difference
   - I learnt new things
   - I grew as a person
   
   
5. I made a difference.
   
   Ask the children to raise their hand if they think that they did something last year that made a positive difference to someone else.
   
   Ask them to raise both hands if they think that they could do more this year.
   
   Point out that making a difference to someone else is a big deal. Many people say that putting a smile on someone else’s face leads us to feel happier ourselves, just like the feeling that we get when we give a present to someone.
   
   This year, let’s try to think of new and exciting ways in which we can make a difference. This is our chance to be creative, have lots of fun and help others.
   
   
6. I learnt new things.
   
   Learning new skills can make us proud of ourselves, help us to make new friends and boost our confidence. We might even discover a hidden talent that we didn’t know we had.
   
   Some examples of new skills could include learning:
   
   - to play an instrument
   - a new language
   - how to cook
   - a sport or martial art
   - how to fundraise for charity
   
   The start of a new year is a good time to think about the new skills that we would like to learn and how we could achieve this.
   
   
7. I grew as a person.
   
   Each year, not only do we expand our minds and develop new skills, but we also grow as people. This isn’t about us getting taller (although we’ll probably do that too); instead, it means that we begin to understand ourselves better. We understand more about what makes us different from other people and what we like and dislike about ourselves.
   
   We grow in many different ways, including:
   
   - becoming wiser when making decisions
   - being more appreciative of the things that we have
   - loving our friends and family members
   - becoming independent and even being brave about new situations
   
   Encourage the children to reflect on how they have grown as people during the previous year.
   
   
8. So far in this assembly, we’ve discussed what we achieved and learnt last year.
   
   Now let’s consider how we want to make a difference, learn new things and grow as people in the coming year.
   
   Suggest that, this week, the children write a letter to themselves that begins, ‘Dear future me . . . ’, or make a list of the things that they would like to achieve this year.
   
   Remind the children that it’s good to have goals, but also, sometimes, it’s good to seize opportunities when they arise.

Time for reflection

Ask the children to close their eyes and reflect on everything that we have to be grateful for.

Let’s think about those who may not have the luxuries that we do, including a good education. Let’s also think about how we can help others to lead happy, fulfilling lives and how helping others can encourage kindness in our community and around the world.

Let’s pause to think about the coming year. Do we need to make any changes that will enable us to make a difference, learn new things and grow as people?

Prayer
Dear God,
Thank you for the past year and all that we have learnt and experienced.
Please help us in all we do this coming year.
Amen.

Song/music

‘The Blessing [Kids]’, available at: https://youtu.be/uiWZXLsdE9w (5.30 minutes long)