Epiphany Assembly Ideas

Yes, it’s not yet Christmas and here I am thinking about next term’s assemblies! I love doing Epiphany in school. I always buy some frankincense and myrrh to use from http://www.incense-man.co.uk/ and make sure the smell has pervaded the hall before assembly starts (it hasn’t set the smoke alarms of yet…) and Sheila Redman’s ‘we have travelled’ from Hosanna Rock is terrifically funky is a primary school kind of way. http://www.redheadmusic.co.uk/musical.asp?userid=433969&musical=HR . I ask the children these sort of questions:
• The wise men gave gold because gold is precious. What is precious to you? If you had something precious to give away, who would you give it to and why? If you wanted to give God a present, what is the most precious thing you could give him?
• The wise men gave frankincense because it helped them to imagine what heaven smelt like. What do you think heaven is like?
• The wise men gave myrrh because it is used on people who are hurting? Who do you know who is hurting? If you could give a gift to someone who was hurting, what would you give them?


After all this jollity, the next day we would tackle the slaughter of the innocents and the flight into Egypt. I am sure many of us in our schools have children who have had to flee unfettered violence and who are seeking refuge in our country.
Were I a teacher in a secondary school I might dare to show the extract from the wonderful Xhosa film ‘Son of Man’ http://www.sonofmanmovie.com/ where the slaughter of the innocents is shockingly portrayed – but too graphic for primaries.
Certainly I will take the opportunity to talk about how the holy family were asylum seekers. Mary Hoffman’s wonderful book, ‘the Colour of Home’ would be a good choice. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Colour-Home-Mary-Hoffman/dp/0711219915 in linking this to contemporary reality. In this story, a Somali refugee child draws a disturbing picture reflecting the violence he has witnessed, and is then helped by his teacher and friends to reach a place of healing. Perhaps we could use this to discuss how it is possible to slowly move on from being deeply sad or frightened? In any event, I feel a play coming on where the fleeing Mary and Joseph face rejection by some and welcome by others. The play will culminate in Egyptians waving banners saying ‘asylum seekers welcome here’; banners that will then form part of a display about Epiphany in the entrance lobby. Then in time the display will come down to be replaced by Candlemass, but maybe the banners will remain.

God of the stranger and the host
Provide welcome and succour to the stranger
Disturb the comfort of the host to welcome the stranger
So that together they continue life’s journey with the peace, security and rootedness of people who share a common humanity.

Admission policies

Once there was a child, who got beaten up by life. No one can say for sure who the bandits were, maybe it was poverty or abuse or having to flee from a war-torn country, maybe it was having the wrong colour skin or wrong religion, maybe it was the emotional and cultural poverty of his parents, but on thing is certain, here he lay, in pain, suffering, in need.

As he lay there, his chances of a different future dying, there passed by a church school. When it saw him lying there it felt sorry for the child. But it did not stop to help, because it was late for a meeting of the admissions committee.

And then a diocesan board for schools walked passed. It too wished there were something it could do, but needed to be at an important press briefing, to share the latest statistics that proved that church schools were not socially divisive.

Finally, along came a county school. When it saw the child, it was full of compassion. It picked up the child, carried him to safety and paid above and beyond to enable his hurts to be healed.

Apart form being a head teacher, one of the things I get to do is inspect church schools. So far, I have only come across church schools that were Samaritan schools – schools that provide safe and healing places for damaged, hurting children. In fact, it is an amazing privilege to bear witness to the deep compassion, the going the extra mile, the sacrificial giving of self for others that is evident. I haven’t yet come across a school that walks by on the other side.

But, despite that, even though clearly many church schools are places where God’s creative, liberating and empowering love is made flesh in practical, down-to-earth ways that touch peoples’ lives, need we be afraid of asking ourselves tough questions? Do we not all need to hold up our admissions policies and view them through the lens of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Should we not desire eagerly to be held accountable for our social impact?

Without this, it would be very easy to delude ourselves that we were serving our neighbours in need when the reality is we are doing so only superficially. Unless we have hard data that tells us that we are taking more children on free schools meals than our county school neighbours, more children with parents in prison, more on the at risk register, with emotional and behavioural difficulties, with parents with chaotic lifestyles, more who find academic success a challenge, then all our inclusive words are so much rhetoric. Do parents who are drug addicts or prostitutes send their children to our schools? And how much more so or less so than our neighbouring schools? If our admission policies, in giving preferential admission to Christians, mean that are intake is less vulnerable than those in neighbouring schools, then that policy has failed in its role as a sign and instrument of the gospel. Of course it is perfectly possible that preferential Christian admission produces a more vulnerable intake, but, in the jargon of the day, where is our evidence? After all, admissions policies are also exclusion policies, since they define who is less likely to be offered a place..

We do not have this data. We need this data. How can we self evaluate our mission without it? The toolkit [the self evaluation document used in section 48 Anglican church school inspections] does not ask the question. When all church schools squarely looks themselves in the face and ask themselves these types of question, and publish their data and their plans to remedy any shortcomings, then we will be able to answer our critics with authority.