Rockstar’s Special Person Assembly In Kennedy School

It’s our first time at the Year 1 Assembly Rockstar often comes home with stories about, I’d noticed this Special Person Assembly thing almost a year ago when it was mentioned in the welcome package – each week a designated Special Person from each Year 1 class prepares a poster and some talking points to present to all the other Year 1s, which I always thought was such a brilliant idea because Rockstar would tell me various nuggets of information he learned off kids in different classes, and then all week there’d be little activities the class would prepare, like Why (Special Person) Is My Friend/ Why I Like (Special Person), it was to me so much warm and fuzzy to make your child feel welcome and well, special at school.. So by now many Year 1s have already had their turn, and as one of the youngest, recently it was Rockstar’s.

We were supposed to fill this, but I went half the week thinking maybe Rockstar was supposed to do everything from scratch.

Only problem was, the day Rockstar comes home as designated Special Person for his class, he gives vague-ish descriptions about his friends’ presentations before him, except I never saw the school letter and nicely prepared template that we were supposed to work on. 

Maybe…. it’s part of the whole lesson that Rockstar is supposed to prepare a poster completely on his own? (Which is why I don’t email in to ask when he first comes home, because I thought he was supposed to be more independent <sheepish>)

After stewing over the weekend (it was also First Swim Lesson In School and an outing-shortened week and then Rockstar had Hamster Face), come Monday morning at the bus stop I ask another mum whose child has already had her Special Person Assembly and this is when I realize there is supposed to be a nicely prepared template and letter that comes in the presentation folder Rockstar brings home from school for putting his prepared poster in.

(Rockstar would overhear, get on the bus, go in to school and ask for said instructions, prompting a phone call to check and my sheepish explanation that uh, 4.5 days later we finally saw it. <Hangs head> Got caught being blur again.)

Frantically start rooting all around the home and finally find it……………. in Rockstar’s large paper folio of old art projects. Our helper had blindly unpacked everything and stored it away when they got back and then of course had no idea what I was looking for. Now we’re off to the races because it’s Monday afternoon and we have to finish it Wednesday morning. And of course right off the bus he will meet one of his favorite friends in the whole world and I do my best not to FREAK. OUT.

Rockstar comes in the door and I pounce on him to tell me what he wants to answer for the questions on the presentation sheet, herd him into the bath, lay out stuff for him to start decorating with when he gets out (I have two drawers full of “salvageable trash” – spare papers, old mounting boards from discarded picture frames, past craft projects etc), all with a drowsy baby attached. I emerge from settling drowsy baby to find………….

“Ninja” really freaked me out. Eventually stuck a picture of the planet Neptune over it.

O. M. G. What just looks like the most horrifying writing mistakes and crazy diagrams filled directly onto what was once a pristine template in ball point pen and permanent marker.

FREAK OUT NOW, AILEEN. Hang on, actually the Ninja Astronaut thing is funny, but – RIGHT. NOW. BEFORE YOUR HEAD EXPLODES FROM HOLDING IT IN. He wrote right on the only template we have with BIG FAT MARKER. (Should’ve practiced on the Magna Doodle first, didn’t expect him to finish cutting up everything I gave him at top speed while I was still with the baby, and then go to town on the template)

“Taekwondo” was also horribly misspelled and I couldn’t stand it and stuck a paper over it, then had him write the correct spelling C-A-R-E-F-U-L-L-Y under threat of me going bananas

(Rockstar’s description of taekwondo at assembly (thankfully) was “discipline, which is learning how to follow instructions properly”…. I hate when they just say martial arts is “fighting”.) He was also given the chance to show some moves, which he told me later was a great conversation starter with some of the other Year 1 kids, there are quite a few who are apparently doing taekwondo too…

This one I deliberately did not prompt, otherwise he would have gone on to teachers and various activities next, naming everything

<sheepish> Since I’m always keen on him making some good friends, I was kinda hoping his friends would hear it and like it, so I kept quiet after he put in Friends, and he moved on to…

Where he just went nuts. He got “astronomy” down fine, then I stopped him before he horribly misspelled “meteorology”. The stuff stuck all over the poster are cut ups we recycled from previous projects – he did that rocket at bottom when my mum visited maybe 6 months ago

They’re doing a weather module in school now; a week or two ago Rockstar got very taken after hearing something about a weather satellite launch and had some questions about gravity and satellite orbit. (Why the satellite doesn’t crash into Earth when there is gravity. And yes, he also came home asking about gravity. I think they pick up learning opportunities via all the trips, activities and day-to-day conversations, whether it’s more complicated facts, words or even some reinforcement of Math logic, for e.g. “If A is 11 and they thought I was twice that age, how old did they think I was?” – type stuff…

Then for the kids who might need to put in more work to keep up, they have extra group work; Rockstar mentioned they get split up to form different groups during the course of the day which I guess allows them to socialize and get work done in various interesting ways even between the classes…)

Anyway honestly it wasn’t easy to leave all the messiness and jagged edges on the paper cuttings, but…. that whole thing’s Rockstar. Except for a few spelling mistakes I “cheated” on by having him spell on Magna Doodle first, the arrowed diagrams, science – all him.

Strange Homework Outfit

This is “all him” too – sat and didn’t move before dinner for two sittings to rush this poster; once he was so tired from school and playing-after-school he fell asleep for 10 mins (but had I instead insisted he nix the playtime when he’d already promised to work hard on it after, he’d have given some ‘tude – I kinda had to trust he was enthusiastic about school activities to put in his best effort), the other time was right before rushing to taekwondo.

And then showtime.

Waiting his turn…

School staff gently help the little kids up on a high chair so everyone else can see them, then walk them through their presentation. Rockstar would tell me later they had checked beforehand that he could really explain astronomy and meteorology and I appreciate the care they put in to making sure he was prepared so as not to be made uncomfortable up there – ages ago, Rockstar had mentioned he’d once been asked to talk about some of the school online math homework, which I guess is because he had been logging on and putting in the time on the recommended modules at home… Asking him math in front of the whole year had made me a little anxious when I first heard about it though, in case somehow it was something he didn’t know how to answer in front of everyone. But that exercise had made Rockstar even more enthusiastic about doing the work, and continues to mostly enjoy it…

And so this is him showing his poster to the other Year 1s at assembly…

There are a lot of opportunities for the kids to receive praise and encouragement each week at the assembly, next were the announcements for Best Environment and Bag Monitors, which classes had remembered to switch off all their lights and the air conditioning throughout the week, there was even a little dog hand puppet named Buddy who had spotted a little girl being kind and helping another child on the playground. Also birthday songs for the children who were celebrating that week. All in all, the assembly really provides a lot of acknowledgement and recognition for good behavior not just of the academic kind, but also very much socially. And it’s not just by the teachers, the way they reward the kids in class challenges, their own classmates are the ones cheering them on the hardest, for winning awards for good behavior….

(Love this whole sentiment because I remember a time (donkeys’ years ago :D) when I went to school and the recognition of academic excellence was to the point whereby kids sometimes got the message if they performed in school/ activities, they could treat others like they didn’t matter. I have actual egs but this post would be too long.)

And then, an interesting few phrases and facts about a foreign country – the assembly we were at, that was Russia, and Rockstar’s two Russian schoolmates come to the front to introduce a simple phrase (last week’s was French). I’d been exchanging notes with a former market girlfriend (credit structuring, no less!) who is very excited the eldest of her boys will be starting at Kennedy next term – they are from Romania and I think they’re really gonna love this one.

Some final announcements, and……. the Year 1 Spellathon!

Rockstar running through the words quickly before school one day

The Spellathon Rockstar’s year is 15 words they have to learn for a test. Children can be sponsored per word that they get right OR a set amount for participating in said test which happens after this long weekend, which is a nice way of getting some learning done in a donation drive towards more books and other learning supplies for the Year 1s. Heck, get this –

When asked at the assembly who had started getting sponsors for them to take this test, easily three-quarters of the Year 1s enthusiastically raised their hands. If you had like, your own child’s school Spellathon happening in under a week and you haven’t moved on “sponsoring” him yet then…. you are like me. So we have to cram now, you know what we are doing this weekend…!

Rockstar’s first attempt. I have girlfriends who’ve whatsapp-ed me PERFECT spell sheets before ok… So we are going to practice…!

Epilogue: When the Special Persons are done presenting their posters, they would get, to the tune of Oh, Mickey You’re So Fine a drum beat and all the kids go Oh Rockstar You’re So Fine, You’re So Fine You Really Shine Hey Rockstar <clap><clap> and I have this idiot smile on my face even before it’s my child they are singing that to because it’s so cute.

More than that, Rockstar has on and off mentioned about the music he gets in school almost from the start, and I simply hadn’t thought much of it, when really I should have because Rockstar once hated nursery rhymes and sing-alongs, to the point he used to walk to the exit and politely wait to be let out of play centers. It was my first time hearing some of the accompaniment, as the children filed out to class, and it was much better than what we get in Cantonese music class. Much more elaborate tunes, and it sounds really, really good. Even the music as the kids exit back to class – Crazy good. 

And then Rockstar would come home that day, and tell me how two of his friends requested he include some black holes in his solar system Special Person offerings, how he got lots of compliments and made friends with kids in different classes… All the stuff the Special Person activity must be meant for. Bet lotsa Special Persons get black hole requests and things, much to their delight.