One principal replaced a 45-minute PowerPoint assembly with a 20-minute play session. The staffroom talked about it for a term. Here is what happened and why it worked.
The email came from a deputy principal in Melbourne. She had watched her school's Wednesday assembly for three years, students sitting in rows, half-listening to announcements, applauding when prompted, then returning to class unchanged. It was not bad. It was just forgettable.
In Week 4 of Term 2, she replaced the whole thing with a play session. No slides. No PA system. Just a facilitator, 280 students, and three equipment-free games from the School of Play curriculum. The debrief took four minutes. Students left energised. Teachers who had never spoken to each other in assembly spent the walk back to class comparing notes. The deputy got twelve emails that afternoon.
Assemblies are culture events. They are one of the few moments when an entire school community is in the same room at the same time. The problem is that most assemblies are designed around information delivery rather than experience. And experience is what creates culture. You do not remember the slide. You remember how you felt.
Passive listening is also the worst context for learning. When we play, the brain encodes differently. Emotion, movement and social connection are the three primary memory anchors. A game that generates laughter, a small amount of physical challenge and a moment of team connection will be talked about for days. A PowerPoint won't.
Total: 20 minutes. The same slot that used to run 45. Announcements move to a Tuesday email and a class-channel notification. Nothing is lost. Everything that matters is gained.
When student leaders facilitate the assembly rather than a teacher, three things happen: the facilitating students develop confidence that no PD course can replicate; the audience pays attention differently to a peer than to an adult; and the culture shift is student-owned, which means it spreads.
The Melbourne deputy ran three play assemblies in Term 2. By Term 3, she had twelve students who wanted to run them. By Term 4, the student leadership cohort owned the calendar.
Get the free Wellbeing Assembly KitA printable 2-page summary with the key takeaways. Perfect for staffroom walls, fridge doors, or the back of a planner.
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