Ideas for… INCLUSIVE ASSEMBLIES
Humanists endorse the educational value of school assemblies and their role in supporting shared values and the school community and ethos, but think that worship and prayers are inappropriate in situations where there is no shared religious faith. School assemblies can and should include the whole school community. Many teachers share this view and, whilst they do not wish to lead worship, they would be happy to contribute to assemblies which inspired their pupils to lead better lives or to think deeply about moral issues, and this briefing is intended to help them. Assemblies that build on the common ground of our humanity can have an important role to play in inclusive Spiritual Moral Social and Cultural Development and education for Citizenship.
Some general points
The legal requirement for “wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character” is open to interpretation. It certainly means that a substantial minority (up to 49%) need not be Christian at all, and the others can be “broadly Christian” – which entails relating to the traditions of Christian belief and according a special status to Jesus Christ. (Circular 1/94). This too is interpretable, but humanist teachers might prefer to concentrate their efforts on the 49% that do not have to be Christian.
Praying should always be voluntary - a short silence, in which pupils can reflect on the theme, or pray if they wish, is recommended by many writers of assembly material, some SACREs, and the BHA. A voluntary prayer can fulfil some of your “worship” obligations - but you need to work out an effective and inclusive way (not “Amen”) to end the silence and finish the assembly in a strong and positive manner.
Planning: Year and KS assemblies are lawful and enable better targeted material. Hymns are not obligatory, and there are many good substitutes if you still want music in an assembly (see below). If you want pupils to remember what you say, it is worth getting notices out of the way first or delivering them in another way.
Topics and themes
“The themes of assembly are the great human themes: courage, achievement, love, compassion, wonder, imagination, joy, tragedy, hope, responsibility, humanitarian endeavour, and the mystery of existence. Its resources are human greatness, the commemoration of great lives, great events, great achievements - as well as the struggles and hopes and opportunities of contemporary women and men. The assembly should be attractive, positive, encouraging and inspiring.”
Dr James Hemming, educational psychologist and BHA Vice-President.
Few borrowed assemblies are as good as those produced by teachers themselves, based on their own interests and enthusiasms, written for a particular audience or occasion. Students tend to listen more attentively to this sort of presentation, and know when they are being “palmed off” with something second-hand.. For this reason, we confine ourselves to a few suggestions rather than scripts. Many of these will be obvious to experienced teachers.
- Art and music can contribute to the spiritual dimension and demonstrate human creativity and the ability to share with and inspire others. Just to look or listen with an introduction from an enthusiast can be enough (but the practicalities of slide projectors and sound systems can be a nuisance!).
- The natural world is an excellent theme - its wonder, interdependence and co-operation. Pictures or objects (e g fossils) can provoke awe and wonder – or just look out of the window or listen to natural sounds outside.
- Poetry and prose - fiction and non-fiction - your favourites. Or ask the English department for material for particular themes.
- Anecdotes from your own experience, especially your school days, can be enthralling for pupils,
who benefit from reminders that teachers have lives outside school and were once young. But make sure you have a point to make!
- The daily news can be a rich source of assembly themes. Good news about human achievement can inspire students. Events can stimulate moral questions and raise issues of rights and responsibilities. If you do need a last minute theme, take the front page of a daily paper, choose a story from it, outline the facts, read extracts, and highlight some moral questions, or extrapolate from the issues involved to wonder what will have changed in, say, 20 years’ time when pupils will
have adult responsibilities.
- Pupils can lead excellent assemblies. Each set of pupils due to lead one will need a teacher to brief them, be available for guidance and rehearsals, and be there on the day to support them.
- Visitors can be refreshing, but need to be well briefed, and should be vetted for suitability - usually a role for the head. You may have heard reports of evangelical drama groups and bands visiting schools; the BHA is strongly opposed to this.
- Days to celebrate: There are plenty of non-religious events to mark in assemblies. The anniversaries of famous people’s births or deaths, or of historical events, can be used to introduce inspirational stories or figures who otherwise would remain unknown to your pupils. You can use birthdays, yours or someone else’s, or the school’s, to reflect on new beginnings or on ageing. Many Christian festivals adopted earlier pagan or seasonal events, and many non-religious or non-Christian people have adopted Christian festivals, and this can be interesting to explore in assemblies. Astronomical events such as eclipses and comets, and natural events such as volcanoes, can inspire awe and wonder, both at the size and power of nature and at our growing understanding of natural phenomena. And almost every day of the year has been adopted by a charity or pressure group which would be only too glad to provide information about themselves. A few suggestions for each school term can be found on the final page. You can findbiographical information about the people mentioned on the internet or in a good encyclopaedia, and some (marked “BHA” can be obtained from the BHA or Some dates are moveable, so check every year.
Further reading and resources
FOR TEACHERS:
Statement of Values by the National Forum for Values in Education and the Community (Appendix to the National Curriculum, England, 2000)
BHA briefing for teacherson collective worship and assemblies (free)
A statement of the current legal position and BHA policy.
BHA briefing for teachers:Spiritual Development in Schools
The Association of Teachers and Lecturers publishes its own
guidance, Collective Worship: Policy and Practice (March 1995).
Some SACREs, notably Hampshire and Suffolk, publish very useful guidance on inclusive assemblies.
School resources on Citizenship and PSHE can be very useful. See for example the Citizenship Foundation’s Good Thinking series (published by Evans Education).
FOR SECONDARY ASSEMBLIES:
Maureen HarrisonTime to Think (Collins Educational)
A4 photocopiable sheets, a mixed bag of items though some a humanist could use with a clear conscience. Uses silence and reflection (with occasional invitations to pray “if you wish”) throughout instead of prayer - a good thing for the humanist teacher and endorsed in an introduction by the former Archbishop of York.
The Secondary Assembly File (pfp)
A4 photocopiable - available by subscription and updated annually - another mixed bag but some useful ideas. Often involving student participation, mostly non-religious (though refers to “the created world” in an otherwise mostly non-religious section). Uses reflection as a response to the readings rather than prayer.
Sample talk on Humanism (free from BHA). See also Thoughts(for the Day) on transcripts of Margaret Nelson’s Suffolk Radio broadcasts.
Ed Margaret Knight, revised by Jim Herrick The Humanist Anthology (RPA*, £7.50)
Insights from some of the world’s great thinkers, from Confucius to the present day, an excellent source of quotations and inspirational readings for the humanist.
Thinkers’ Guide to Life, edited by Marilyn Mason (RPA*, £5.00 inc p& p)
Brief quotations from great thinkers, arranged thematically. Useful “thoughts for the day”.
Seasons of Life, compiled by Nigel Collins (RPA*, £10.99 inc p& p)
Prose and poetry reflections on life, time passing, nature, ideals, love, marriage, children, death. Good for reading aloud.
FOR PRIMARY SCHOOLS:
Aesop’s Fables often contain moral ideas that can be drawn out – on
Folk and fairy tales fairness, justice, kindness, mutual respect. Even familiar
Popular children’s stories stories can be given a fresh angle with appropriate questions or comments.
Robert Fisher Stories for Thinking (Nash Pollock ISBN 1 898 255 09 1)
30 multi-cultural stories for 7-11 year olds with discussion plans and thinking activities and a useful chapter for teachers introducing the idea of philosophy for children. Varied and interesting stories with some excellent discussion questions on topics such as happiness, anger, beauty, personal identity. Also by Robert Fisher and probably worth looking at: Poems for Thinking ; Games for Thinking; Pictures for Thinking.
The Primary Assembly File(pfp)
A4 photocopiable - available by subscription and updated annually - another mixed bag but some useful ideas. Often involving student participation, mostly non-religious (though some dodgy references to “the created world” in an otherwise mostly non-religious section). Uses reflection as a response to the readings rather than prayer.
Margaret Goldthorpe and Lucy Nutt Assemblies to teach Golden Rules (Learning Development Aids, ISBN 1 85503 310 0, £15.95)
These assemblies convey an inclusive and universal morality in a lively, positive and involving way, through story, anecdote, activity and pupil participation (some demanding a bit of preparation). Rules / topics are: Look after property; Be kind and helpful; Listen; Be gentle; Be honest; Work hard; and each rule is returned to several times in a variety of guises. Each assembly ends with a “thought for the day” or an optional prayer. Bible references are given, but are optional too.
The Green Umbrella (WWF & A & C Black)
Starting points for environmental assemblies.
The tinderbox assembly book (A & C Black)
Personal, social and environmental issues for assemblies, with a companion songbook:Tinderbox.
Sing a silver lining (A & C Black, various editions: music, melody, classroom with CD, from £12.99 for teachers’ book)
16 cheerful, optimistic songs for primary children, very suitable for non-religious assemblies, some familiar, some new, about friendship, happiness, and celebration of the good things in life - a much more inspiring and inclusive start to the day than hymns!
* RPA publications available from RPA, 47 Theobalds Road, London WC1X 8SP 020 7430 1371
Available from the BHA
DAYS TO CELEBRATE
SPRING TERM
January
Chinese New Year
1 New Year
8 Death of Galileo
9 Simone de Beauvoir’s birthday
17 Benjamin Franklin’s birthday
19 James Watt’s birthday
19 Auguste Comte’s birthday
22 Philosopher and scientist Francis Bacon’s birthday
25 Burns Night (Scotland)
29 Thomas Paine’s birthday BHA
February
Mardi Gras - Pancake Day
2 Death of Bertrand Russell BHA
8 Ruskin’s birthday
12 Charles Darwin’s birthday BHA
12 Death of Immanuel Kant
14 Death of Julian Huxley BHA
15 Galileo’s birthday
15 Jeremy Bentham’s birthday
16 Giordano Bruno burned as a heretic
March
Mothering Sunday
British Summertime begins
UN Day Against Racism
3 William Godwin’s birthday
7 Wordsworth’s birthday
8 International Women’s Day
9 Commonwealth Day
14 Death of Karl Marx
14 Albert Einstein’s birthday
17 Birthday of Marcus Aurelius
21 Spring Equinox
22World Water Day
25 Shelley expelled from Oxford for publishing The Necessity of
Atheism BHA
31 Birth of Descartes
SUMMER TERM
April
Freedom Day (South Africa)
7 World Health Day
11 Death of Primo Levi
12 Galileo imprisoned by the Inquisition, 1633
13 Thomas Jefferson’s birthday
15 Death of Sartre
16 Death of Simone de Beauvoir
18 Death of Einstein
22 Birthday of Immanuel Kant
22 World Day for Water
23 Death of Wordsworth
23 Shakespeare’s birthday BHA
26 Birthday of Marcus Aurelius
26 Leonardo da Vinci’s birthday
27 Mary Wollstoncraft’s birthday BHA
May
1 May Day
3 World Press Freedom Day
4 T H Huxley’s birthday BHA
5 Karl Marx’s birthday
7 Sigmund Freud’s birthday BHA
8 International Red Cross and Crescent Day
8 Death of John Stuart Mill BHA
9 Europe Day
15 International Conscientious Objectors’ Day
15 International Day of Families
18 Bertrand Russell’s birthday BHA
20 John Stuart Mill’s birthday BHA
21 Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man banned, 1792 BHA
28 Anniversary of founding of Amnesty International
30 Death of Voltaire
June
Fathers’ Day
Dragon Boat Festival (Chinese)
2 Thomas Hardy’s birthday BHA
5 World Environment Day
6 Death of Jeremy Bentham
11 World Population Day
16 International Refugee Day
21 Longest Day - Midsummer
21 International Humanist Day
21 Jean-Paul Sartre’s birthday
22 Galileo condemned, 1633
22 Death of Julian Huxley BHA
25 George Orwell’s birthday BHA
27 Death of A J Ayer
28 Rousseau’s birthday
July
4Independence Day, USA
8 Shelley drowned at sea BHA
11 World Population Day
14 Emmeline Pankhurst’s birthday
21 Death of Robert G Ingersoll BHA
AUTUMN TERM
September
International Day of Peace
World Maritime Day
8 International Literacy Day
10 Death of Mary Wollstonecraft BHA
13 Death of Montaigne
21 H G Wells’ birthday
23 Autumn Equinox
October
Harvest
National Poetry Day
End of British Summer Time
World Habitat Day
Columbus Day (USA)
5International Teachers’ Day
14Death of Gene RodenberryBHA
16 World Food Day
17 International Day for the Eradication of Poverty
21 Trafalgar Day
24 United Nations Day
31 Keats’ birthday
November
Thanksgiving Day (USA)
International Day for Tolerance
2 Anniversary of the founding of the Samaritans
3 Death of Harriet Taylor Mill
4 Guy Fawkes’ Night
11 Remembrance Day
14 Jawarhalal Nehru’s birthday BHA
16 International Day for Tolerance
18 Pierre Bayle’s birthday
20 Universal Children’s Day
21 Voltaire’s birthday
21 World Television Day
22 George Eliot’s birthday BHA
24 Evolution Day – anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species BHA
28 Friedrich Engels’ birthday
December
1 Rosa Parks arrested for challenging segregation on Alabama buses, 1955 (
2 International Day for the Abolition of Slavery
4 Death of Hobbes
5 I nternational Volunteer Day
10 Human Rights Day
12 Erasmus Darwin’s birthday
17 Beethoven’s birthday
22 Shortest Day
May01