Imagine the Difference: assembly ideas

Learning objectives

• To understand that people are different in many interesting ways
• To appreciate that difference is a positive thing

A brand-new school

You might want to wear a hat or a different item of clothing, because you will be playing the role of the teacher from a new school called Exactly The Same Primary School.

Ask for a volunteer to be the first pupil at this brand new school and ask them to come and stand beside you. Explain to the children that you are looking for more children to join the school where everybody will do exactly the same as everybody else and everybody will be exactly the same as everybody else. You could tell them that you think it will be a fantastic school and then ask for volunteers to enrol.

Finding differences

As each new child asks to join you will have to find a way in which they are different from your first pupil. Of course, if you have chosen a girl, that immediately excludes all the boys and so on. Try to include both physical differences and likes and dislikes as you question the children, so that they get a good idea about how people can be different in so many ways. After you have done this for a few minutes you will still only have one pupil. Talk to the children about what kind of school this one-pupil school would be like. Would your first and only pupil still want to go there or would they rather stay in their existing school where there are lots of differences?

Ask the children to tell you about someone in the school whom they have noticed is different to themselves in some way. What do they like about this difference?

Stories about difference

• Read the story We're going to the Zoo. How were David and Paddy different from each other? What had David noticed about some of the animals in the zoo? What would it be like if all the animals in the zoo were the same?
• David McKee has written two classic stories, Elmer and Tusk Tusk, that help children to understand that being different is part of our world. Elmer is a multi-coloured patchwork elephant. He thinks his friends are laughing at him because he is different, but he comes to understand that they love him because of who he is. Tusk Tusk is more suitable for older children and is described in the assembly for Key Stage 2.