Assemblies
Supporting our curriculum
Our daily assemblies are an important part of our bespoke personal development curriculum for William Harding pupils, with strong links to PSHE, RE, mental health and wellbeing. We use Picture News to help children keep up to date with current global news and events. We also tailor our assemblies to share local and school news, giving children the opportunity to explore what is important to them. Our regular class debate assemblies allow children to develop important communication and debate skills, supporting our oracy strategy as part of our English curriculum.
Each half term’s overview is planned carefully to ensure we meet the current needs of the pupils.
At the start of each half term we have an assembly to remind children of our school vision, values, behaviour expectations, safety and the importance of good attendance.
The UKS2 Assembly monitors help to run and monitor the assemblies including leading the school in our Value Affirmations.
Click here to see an example half termly assembly overview
Monday
Picture news - this helps us to explore global, national and current issues.
This news is always current and relevant to the children’s understanding of the world, covering both global and national news and topics.
Picture News Summer 1 Overview - Click here to see what we have been finding about in Summer 1.
The Picture News overview shows how the focus debate question links to the current news story as well as how we link discussions about British Values and Protected Characteristics to support the children’s understanding and knowledge of these topics.
Classes then discuss the ‘Big Question’ later on in the week, developing their debating skills.
Click here to read the latest Picture News letters - a summary of recent news.
We also look at local and school community news to support relevant themes.
Follow this link to find out more about picture news
Tuesday
Festivals & Events - we cover a range of topics including: festivals, celebrations, our school values, protected characteristics, mental health, online safety, ECO warriors and other subject specific topics.
Wednesday
Class assemblies - LORIC, wellbeing, follow-up on Monday’s assembly by debating topics. We also discuss and identify the Zones of Regulation and British Values.
Thursday
Singing assembly - we learn songs from a range of cultures and genre.
Friday
Celebration assembly - including star of the week, reader of the week, kindness award and house points. We will also share school and individual successes and children are invited to bring in any awards they have received.
Each half term we have a Star of The Half term assembly where parents of the stars are invited to join the celebrations.