Our example assembly! By Jo Martin
Please click on the image to view the video
I was very excited to be able to visit Pickhill Church of England Primary School to lead a Picture News assembly.
As a teacher, I used to work closely with my teaching teams to plan and deliver lessons. I used to love seeing how different teachers and different classes would put their own spin on resources and steer their learning in slightly different directions. This is also one of the things I love about Picture News. Using the same starting point and the same resource, but the journey and end point can be so very different.
One of my absolute ‘must dos’ when delivering any session is to involve every single child. Assemblies can be quite tricky to do this, especially when teaching in large schools. Some of the ideas used to structure the Picture News assembly at Pickhill, do require a response from every child and do work in schools of all sizes. I have delivered assemblies to over 500 children, squeezed into one hall so I promise, it is possible!
I structured the assembly into different sections, and I borrowed Pickhill’s ‘Picture News Monitors’ to lead parts of the assembly, which, as I am sure you can tell, they usually do alongside their teachers. Overtime, I would be tempted to hand over whole sections for some children to lead.
You might also notice the Picture News display, which is placed in the hall and which the children instantly record their responses on after the assembly. The children change the posters and put up their own responses – can’t beat a time-saver!
You can never quite tell how a story is going to go and what response it is going to receive. Sometimes, you get so excited about sharing a week with the children for it to fall upon a relatively unimpressed audience, whereas other weeks the buzz and excitement created from it is just incredible. It is these weeks where I would encourage further responses and learning to take place back in the classroom. Remember, Picture News is a current affairs resource, meaning learning is real-life, children are given voices and they can potentially impact and bring about change to our world!
As embarrassing as I find it to release a video of myself teaching, here it is! I hope you enjoy it and as always, I’d love to hear from you about your favourite assemblies, sessions or ideas you use to deliver Picture News. Please feel free to email help@picture-news.co.uk.