A new term

To provide an assembly to mark and celebrate the new school year.

by Jan Edmunds

Suitable for Whole School (Pri)

Aims

To provide an assembly to mark and celebrate the new school year.

Preparation and materials

• Read through the material and decide how you would like to use it. Individuals or groups of children could conduct this assembly.
• Write each letter of the title, NEW TERM, in bold print on one side of a piece of card, and the corresponding sentence from the poem on the other.
• Arrange the children so that as they read and hold up the letters they form NEW TERM. The remaining speakers can have their lines written on cards or could be encouraged to learn them. Some rehearsal may be necessary.
• An OHP could be used for the prayer if required.

Assembly

Speaker 1: The holidays are over, we’re sorry when they end.

Speaker 2: But here in school we’re happy to meet again each friend.

Speaker 3: N is for new, a new term and all things new to come. (Hold up card)

Speaker 4: E is the education that’s here for everyone. (Hold up card)

Speaker 5: W is for the work we’ll be doing every day. (Hold up card)

Speaker 6: T stands for the teachers who will help us on our way. (Hold up card)

Speaker 7: E is for the energy put into everything we do. (Hold up card)

Speaker 8: R is for our reading to discover something new. (Hold up card)

Speaker 9: M is for mathematics that we really need to learn. (Hold up card)

Speaker 10: All these things are waiting as we enter this new term.

Speaker 11: I’m pleased to be back. Many years ago schools were very different. Only boys went to school. Girls had to stay at home and learn to cook, sew and do jobs around the house.

Speaker 12: Jesus went to school when he was six years of age. There would have been no books, desks, chairs or computers.

Speaker 13: He would have learned to read and write by making letters in the sand. His teacher was called ‘the master’.

Speaker 14: Schools have changed very much over hundreds of years. Once they were very strict places where pupils were sometimes very unhappy and lived in fear of their teachers.

Speaker 15: We think of school as a happy place where we learn lots of exciting things and make many new friends.

Time for reflection

Speaker 16 or group:

As we enter this new school year let us think or pray:br> This is our school, may we all live here happily together.
May our school be full of joy.
May love dwell here among us every day.
Love of one another. Love of all people everywhere.
Love of life itself and love of God – if that is your faith.
Let us remember that as many hands build a house
So every child can make this school a lovely place.
(paraphrase from ‘The School Creed’ of a school in Canada)

Speaker 17: Let us all sing together ‘The ink is black’.

Song/music

‘The ink is black’ (Come and Praise, 67)