Assemblies at Underley Garden – Spring 1

Week 1 – Buddhist Mahayana New Year

The young people started by talking about what new year’s resolutions are and if they had made any. They then discussed that not everyone celebrates New Year the same, for example, Mahayana Buddhists. They discussed Buddhist beliefs and how they celebrate their new year at a different time of year. The looked at images of the temples and saw pictures of the lanterns and fireworks used to celebrate. In line with Buddhist New Year the young people discussed what they wanted to improve on in 2025 and how they would do that and wrote it in an outline of Buddha. Q2 and Q3 then went to visit the Kadampa Buddhist temple where they walked around the grounds and inside the temple with some of them taking part in a guided meditation. 

Week 2 – Make your Dreams come true 

The young people discussed what Make Your Dreams Come True Day is and encouraged them to think about their goals for the future. As a group they went through each step of how they could help themselves achieve their dreams. They discussed the importance of identifying a dream, picturing it using mind maps or vision boards and thinking out each step to success. They then identified each of these steps used in the Tangled storyline before identifying and drawing their own dreams to help them visualise their future goals. 

Week 3 – Burns Night 

The young people enjoyed celebrating Burns Night together. They watched a video about Robert Burns’ life and then discussed the traditions followed on Burns Night such as eating haggis, neeps and tatties. They then designed their own tartan print whilst listening to some traditional Scottish music and reading some of Robert Burns’ famous poems. 

Week 4 – Chinese New Year 

The young people really enjoyed learning about Chinese New Year. They discussed that the Lunar New year marks the start of spring and talked about the traditional foods eaten and colours worn during the celebration. The young people then talked about the year of the snake before enjoying a parade around the quad with dragon and snake puppets. They did this to Chinese themed music and played drums as they went. They then enjoyed trying some spring rolls and prawn crackers in line with traditional Chinese New year celebrations. 

Week 5 – Safer Internet Day

This safer internet day was all about scams. The young people talked about what a scam is and how they can be identified. As groups they looked at random messages sent on the internet and had to decide if they were online scams. They then discussed how many people use the internet and how they can use it safely. They finished by drawing their own scam in a template of a phone or laptop and seeing if they could ‘scam’ their partner using it. They all did really well at recognising the signs of a scam. 

Week 6 – Children’s Mental Health Awareness 

The young people started by identifying positive and negative emotions using the characters from ‘Inside Out 2’. They then talked about the children’s mental health charity Place2Be and how they offer support to young people. They discussed the factors that can affect mental health and who they can talk to if they have any reoccurring negative feelings. They then talked about this year’s theme, ‘know yourself, grow yourself’. The young people focussed on how to improve their own self-understanding to improve their mental health and each chose an activity to complete after assembly to improve their mental health.