As a primary school leader, there has always been a special place in my heart for the whole-school assembly. When Covid struck, assemblies were one of the things I missed most.
Like a lot of other schools, we tried to foster a sense of togetherness by creating digital assemblies, which essentially involved me pretending to be a children’s TV presenter for 45 minutes. As a depute with responsibility for the upper years, the Primary 1s, who only really see me on the digital assembly, would follow me around the playground saying: “You’re that man from the telly!”
Assembly in this format provided some excellent creativity and allowed for a range of voices to reach the whole school in a way that isn’t possible in person. For example, children who would not typically want to stand up in assembly were creating their own videos to be shared with the whole school. Some classes even “took over” digital assembly to put their own spin on the format. Yet, despite all of the innovation, it was always just a workaround - a solution to a problem that was always (hopefully) temporary.
So, think how excited I was when the announcement came through that (with the right mitigations in place) we could start to have in-person assemblies again. The dust was blown off the microphone case, batteries were replaced in remote controls, I had an argument with the PA system, which screeched and screamed its way out of hibernation. We were ready to welcome everyone back.
A slow trickle of children came cautiously into the hall, blinking in the sunlight streaming in through the open windows. Siblings and friends waved at each other frantically across the room. Very quickly, the hall was full of eager children, cross-legged on the floor, anticipating something special. A buzz rippled around the room.
As the first Fischy Music number came out of the speakers, and the whole hall broke into the once-customary chorus of “Welcome everybody, it’s good to see you here!”, the joy in the room erupted. Being there in the hall, sharing a song, and a laugh and a story - we were rebuilding our community. We were reclaiming assemblies from the confines of the screen. It became a celebration of simply being together, something that has been all too absent from school life recently.
Achievements were celebrated, house points were announced and children took to the microphone to share their experiences in areas important to them. It wouldn’t have been an assembly without The Greatest Showman making an appearance, the words expertly altered to “This is the greatest school” and sung emphatically as the children left the hall.
The emotion was intense. One girl came up to me and said: “I am crying and I don’t know why!” A few of the adults were wiping away the tears, too. The significant thing for me was that there was nothing particularly exceptional about this assembly. There were no pyrotechnics or theatrical costume changes (my plans were, unfortunately, not approved). This was just a run-of-the-mill, normal assembly, but there was magic in the mundane.
I don’t want to forget the lessons we learned from digital assemblies. The increased pupil voice and creativity that they provided is something we need to continue with in-person assemblies. We also need to remember how much more inclusive a digital assembly was for the children who don’t like the sensory overload of whole-school gathering.
I am also aware that we will return to a point where the novelty of live assemblies disappears. But, for now, in this moment, in the words of that song heard across countless schools at this time of year, “I’m a real spring chicken and I’m having a ball!”
Jude Moir is a primary school depute headteacher in Edinburgh. He tweets @MrJudeMoir
