Real Friendship
The importance of our friends
by Rebecca Parkinson
Suitable for Whole School (Sec)
Aims
To consider what it means to be a good friend.
Preparation and materials
- You will need the PowerPoint slides that accompany this assembly (Real Friendship) and the means to display them.
Assembly
- Tell the students that you are going to show them some images and you want to know whether they can spot the link between them.
Show Slides 1-6.
Explain that the link is that each image depicts an aspect of friendship. - Ask the students to think of an occasion when they had a particularly good time with a friend.
- Why did they enjoy it so much?
- What made it special?
Listen to a range of responses. - Explain to the students that it’s great to have friends who understand us and look out for us. But there has to be give and take: we need to make an effort to be good friends ourselves.
Real friendship is not about what we can get out of someone, but what we can give to them. - Show Slide 7.
Ralph Waldo Emerson is a famous nineteenth-century American poet. One of his best-known quotations is, ‘The only way to have a friend is to be one.’
Ask the students what they think Emerson meant by these words.
Emphasize that being a friend is about putting other people first; it’s not about being selfish and wanting our own way.
Time for reflection
Show Slide 8.
There is another famous quotation about friendship in the Bible, in the Book of Ecclesiastes. It goes like this: ‘Two are better than one because, if one falls over, the other one will pick them up.’
Ask the students to turn to the person next to them and discuss what they think these verses mean.
Listen to a range of responses.
Explain that picking someone up in this way might simply involve smiling at someone if they are sad.
Ask the students to think about a time when someone has ‘picked them up’ when they have needed help.
Pause to allow time for thought.
Show Slide 7 again.
Ask the students to think about the quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson again: ‘The only way to have a friend is to be one.’
Encourage the students to think of a time when someone has been a true friend to them. Maybe it was when they were feeling lonely or sad and someone came over to chat to them. Or maybe they got stuck with some homework and someone took time to explain it so that they understood.
Ask the following questions.
- Are we a good friend?
- How could we become better at being a friend?
Pause to allow time for thought.
Encourage the students to think about possible opportunities when they could be a good friend to someone. Encourage them to look for opportunities to be a good friend today.
Prayer
Dear God,
Thank you for our friends.
Thank you for the fun that we can have with them and the good times that we spend together.
Please help us to be a good friend.
Please help us not to be selfish, but always to think of other people and their needs.
Amen.
Song/music
‘You’ve got a friend in me’ from the film Toy Story, available at: https://youtu.be/DNZUKm0ApEM (2.08 minutes long)
