Hopes for the New School Year
What are our hopes for the school year ahead?
by Hannah Taylor
Suitable for Whole School (Pri)
Aims
To encourage the children to continue to follow their dreams.
Preparation and materials
- Have available the YouTube video ‘Never lose hope – a short story’ and the means to show it during the assembly. It is 3.33 minutes long and is available at: https://youtu.be/CAdu-84Q5Nk
- Optional: you may wish to have a dictionary available for a child to look up the word ‘hope’.
Assembly
- Ask the children, ‘What do we mean by the word “hope”?’
Listen to a range of responses. - Optional: invite a child to look up the definition of hope in the dictionary.
We could define hope as wanting something to happen or to be true. For example, we hope that they find a cure.
A hope can also be something that we wish for. For example, we might like to tell our hopes and dreams to our friends.
A hope can be a person, thing or situation that will help us to get what we want. For example, she is my last hope. - Ask the children for their own examples of sentences that include the word ‘hope’.
Explain that hope is something that we really want to happen. We might hope that we can learn to dance like our favourite dancer, or we might hope that our friend feels better soon.
Having hope is a wonderful thing. We can imagine it as a lovely, warm sparkle inside us, something exciting waiting to happen. Hope enables us to be positive and to consider how we can make these lovely things happen. - Tell the children that you are going to show them a short video about a little dog who is learning to become a guide dog for blind people. Ask them to look out for the message about hope.
Show the YouTube video ‘Never lose hope – a short story’ (3.33 minutes long). - Ask the children, ‘What can we do to help others feel hopeful?’
Listen to a range of responses.
Answers might include showing love and care to people.
Ask the children how they can do this.
Listen to a range of responses. - Point out that we all need to feel that we are cared for. Suggest that we can show other people how to do this through our attitudes and actions by:
- offering to help someone
- telling someone that we appreciate them, or saying thank you
- trying to cheer people up, reminding them that things will get better
- encouraging someone to find a hobby that they might enjoy
Ask the children for other ideas. - Ask the children, ‘How can we achieve our own hopes and dreams?’
Ask the children to think of something that they’d love to do, or a place that they’d love to visit. Perhaps there’s a hobby that they’d like to take up, or a skill that they’d like to learn.
Encourage them to reflect on how they might make their hope happen. Could they practise more at home, join a club or get their friends involved to encourage them? - If possible, give an example of something that you would like to try yourself, or a hope that you have for the coming year.
Time for reflection
Point out that, as we start a new school year, most of us will have a hope for the year ahead. Ask the children their hopes for the coming year.
Listen to a range of responses.
Encourage the children to share their dreams with people they trust and people who might be able to help them fulfil their dreams.
Point out that it’s wonderful having hopes and dreams.
You may wish to encourage the children to:
- make a hope jar by writing all their hopes on sticky notes and placing them inside
- create a hope banner for the classroom
- make a scrapbook of their hopes for the new school year
Remind the children that the new school year is not only about changing ourselves, it’s also about celebrating who we are, our talents and the things that we love to do.
Encourage the children to think of something that they would love to achieve in the coming year. Challenge them to consider how they are going to achieve it, and encourage them to talk to someone about it.
Sometimes, the bravest thing that we can do is to take the first step towards doing something new. Encourage the children to be brave!
Prayer
Dear Lord,
Thank you for our time on earth,
For the beauty and love around us,
And the wonders and adventures that we are yet to experience.
Please help us to encourage and support ourselves and those around us.
Amen.
Song/music
‘The climb’ by Miley Cyrus, available at: https://youtu.be/vMdoR9ksC4k (4.17 minutes long)
