Woodlands Primary School

Assemblies led by chaplains

These assemblies are held regularly, approximately once a month. Although the chaplains are Christians, the clear aim is to enable development of the theme with the aim of enabling spiritual development. The resources may include references to a faith community but the focus is on the inherent values.

Examples of the chaplain-led assemblies are:

• harvest, where support is given to the Open Doors Trust
• remembrance, with a link to Erskine Hospital
• the school's achievement of Eco School status.

At our Harvest Assembly, we asked our parents to donate items to the Open Doors Trust. They are a Glasgow-based charity who help homeless and needy people. They have come to our assemblies for the past five years and have been delighted to accept our donations. We would like to say a big thank you to everyone for their kind donations.

Assemblies led by pupils and school staff

In keeping with probably many schools, assemblies at Woodlands used to be dull, boring and uninteresting affairs. Children turned up but were immediately turned off by the format. I would stand up and usually admonish the pupils for a catalogue of misdemeanours, I woulld remind them of acceptable behaviour and then we would praise the Lord with a few well chosen hymns! Well, it may not have been quite so draconian but neither the assembly nor the hymns lifted anyone's spirits.

What are our assemblies like now? They are bright and happy but importantly full of pupil participation with children and staff loving them - staff have even been known to put the marking to one side. So how did we get to where we are now?

I, as did the staff, recognised that something needed to be done, so initially it was small changes. The first thing that was introduced was an achievement bulletin where I read out pupils' achievements both in and out of school as I believe it's important that we recognise and acknowledge pupils' successes in both these areas. There were fewer admonishments, but they were still there. The achievement bulletin continued but pupils read them out instead of me.

And then came the big change. Our assemblies are now bright, energetic and enthusiastic affairs. Visitors to the assemblies have commented that they have never seen anything like it. When I first heard this statement, I panicked. Were they not as exciting as we all thought? Were we getting carried away with ourselves? No, we weren't. They thought the assemblies were just fantastic.

So much so, that we were invited to participate in two national conferences. The first conference was organised by IDES (a community supported LTS) at Stirling Management Centre. We hosted one of the workshops. Teachers and other members of the education community from all over Scotland participated in this event. The feedback from our workshops was extremely positive.

Peace day assembly

In keeping with the enterprising approach within the school, the pupils themselves presented the workshops. I introduced the pupils, and they then took over with their PowerPoint presentation which they conducted in a competent and capable manner. At the end of each workshop, they answered questions from the workshop participants. All in all, it was a very professional performance.

The second workshop took place at a national conference held at the SECC in Glasgow. Once again, pupils presented the workshops, and once again it was done in a very professional and competent manner.

The format for our assemblies is relatively straightforward. There is a simple but very effective pattern to each week's assembly. Each assembly is split into topics which are introduced by an appropriate snippet of music. The topics include Achievements; Eco School rap; Birthday Book; Road Safety; Pupil Council News; Public Announcements (especially effective prior to Bonfire Night); Playground Awards (awarded by classroom assistants for behaviour, and by the janitor for not dropping litter). Most things are included weekly, but if anything special has been happening in the school such as Walk to School Week or information about the annual Book Fayre a slot is made to include this.

International Walk to School Week

What is particularly noticeable is that staff never, or very rarely, have to tell the children to be quiet and listen. The children in the hall listen to every word, and this is especially effective in areas like road safety or, for example, prior to Bonfire Night, when you have children telling other children to be careful and to be safe.

Pupil participation is high. Every week, two Primary 7 pupils act as comperes, and because the pattern has been set, it's easy for them to keep to the running order. Each topic is introduced by pupils, for example Junior Road Safety Officers, Pupil Council members etc. I am asked if I have anything to say, and I always make sure now that my message is positive, in keeping with the whole ethos of the assembly.

The format has the benefit of being an ideal vehicle for citizenship and health. It also meets the requirements of the four capacities of Curriculum for Excellence - so we can't ask for anything more.

For more information on the school visit our school website.

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