ladyofastolat | On school assemblies

The summer holidays are nearing, and so in the annual summer reading challenge, this year called the Big Wild Read. (Get a medal just for reading books. Read 6 books - any six books - and get a reward. It can do an amazing job in inspiring children to love books. Tell any children you know!) Anyway, I'm now in full-on end of term mode, touring schools doing assemblies to promote the BWR. It always amazes me how unscary I find them, given how shy I am in many other situations, while people who seem far more confident than me socially would rather do pretty much anything in the world rather than talk to a room of 400 people.

Observations on school assemblies:

- It is worrying when the headteacher looks about 21

- Why is that a room of 200 children are incapable of saying, in unison, "Good morning Mrs Bloggs. Good morning everyone," but have to say "Good... morrr...niiinnng... misss... iss... Blogggggssss. Good... morrr... niiinnng... evv... ree... bodd... eeee..." It was like this when I was at school. Is there some secret schoolchild academy where they learn to speak like this?

- When I say, "put your hands up if you think the alligator is going to eat the children, so that only bloody scraps of flesh remain - just as will happen to you, actually, if you're not incredibly good"* the children hear it as, "everyone turn to your friend and discuss in gleeful whispers what you would do if an alligator tried to eat you." (* Okay. I don't actually say it quite like this. Tempting, though...)

- Hymns. Ah, hymns. 90% of assemblies in the last week of term involve the singing of "One more step along the road I go." I'd never heard this until I did my first summer assembly some years ago. Once heard, always in your brain, forever, inescapable. Ah well. At least it beats the Pingle song. *glares darkly at Pellinor.*

- Hymns part 2. Unfortunately, I have an embarrassing habit of getting all teary-eyed when I hear children singing hymns. This is not good when you're on a pedestal in front of 200 children .

- Hymns part 3. What is even worse, though, is when they sing a hymn from memory. Even though it's one you dimly remember from childhood, you cannot remember the words. You either sit there not singing, and set a bad example - "Miss! The library lady wasn't singing! Wasn't she naughty?" - or you open your mouth in a foolish "blah blah" way and try to pretend you're singing. Neither approach is helped by the "Hymns part 2" point, above.

- Is it interesting to note that you can invariably recognise any top year child in the final week of term, even if they are all alone, and thus lacking the context of other, smaller children around them. They exude this sense of being far too important for this petty place now.