Making School Assemblies Engaging
The thing is that most school assemblies are kind of boring. They’re totally by rote, with either some speaker that just parrots what teachers already say or some rah-rah pep rally. The kids know it. The teachers know it.
If you want to ensure not only that the students remember the assembly, but also the teachers – and thereby secure repeat business for people who provide programming for assemblies – then you’re going to have to liven them up a touch.
How does one do so? Start with these 6 tips for making school assemblies a whole lot more fun.
Plan Your School Assembly To The T
One of the first tips for putting on a great school assembly is to have it organized. Have it planned, and down to the second and to every last little detail. The students can tell if you’re just winging it and so can the staff. People respond to competence (or at least the appearance of it) and one of the first signs of it is someone who has their routine down to a science.
If you can run the assembly like a well-oiled machine, the students will notice. So will the staff, who might just ask you back next year.
Be Lively
Something that people also respond to in assemblies is speakers who are positive and lively. What they cannot stand is a boring recitation off some sheet of paper. If you don’t seem into it, they won’t be into it.
A Henry Kissinger lecture would probably be fascinating to an older, more worldly, mature person. He would probably bomb at a middle school with his voice, which is low-register and a bit on the monotone side.
Liven up! The students and staff can feel the energy, so be bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and ready to get moving.
Engage With The Students
Want to make your school assemblies fun? Engage with the students. Engage with them on a personal level, and make them feel like a connection is there, even if only for an hour.
People can tell if this is the fifth school assembly you’ve done this week and just want to go home. If they feel like this is just another stop and you don’t care, then they won’t either. Think of it like going to a concert. If the musicians on stage are just going through the motions, you’ll be able to tell.
So will students and staff, so make sure to reach out early and often to connect with them.
Make Sure Content Of Your School Assembly Is Relevant
It’s one thing to go to a school assembly because your teacher says you have to. It’s even worse when the assembly has absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with anything you remotely care about at all.
Therefore, make sure that your school assembly content is relevant and tailored to the audience. You should make sure that you are giving a presentation that has something to do with the audience it’s being presented to.
Make Sure Your Content Is Logically Consistent
When you present a school assembly, you’ll probably have a few key points that you want to touch on. Just as with presenting anything…an essay, a thesis argument, what have you…you want to make sure that the points that underpin the theme of your assembly flow from one to the other.
You won’t make sense and it will seem like something big was left out. There’s something to be said for always leaving them wanting more, but that’s not the same thing as not making complete sense.
Make Sure You And Everyone Else Is Having Fun
Another tip for making a school assembly fun is to actually have some yourself. If you don’t care or worse, don’t like the school assembly that you’re putting on, the students will know. The staff will know. Your friends and family will ask what you’re doing this school assembly stuff for if you hate it.
You probably won’t get hired next year either.
Therefore, it’s imperative that you find a way to have fun with the school assembly. If you’re having fun, the kids will have fun and the teachers and staff might as well. That will make for a more fun assembly for them AND you.
