As part of our commitment to increase the cultural capital we offer to the children at our school we hold weekly cultural assemblies. These assemblies follow the same format where I share interesting and inspiring people from all walks of life and we also look at significant events from history that happened in that week.

As the children come in they listen to music by the Musician of the Week. Different songs from the artist are played at the beginning and end of assemblies during the week.

We also look at art work from a great range of Artist from all over the world. The work is from a mixture of modern and classic artists. It’s great for starting discussions about art and the slides we use come from c_liddiard on tes. We’ve made a couple of tweaks, but it’s basically these slides.

With the weekly Sports Legend we look at sporting personalities from a range of different sports. Some are extremely well known, others are less familiar but interesting nonetheless and all are greats in their chosen sports.

We also share stories of Awesome Children using some brilliant slides that I saw on Twitter. Unfortunately I can’t find the source at the moment, but I’ll add a link when I do. The common thread with all of these children is that, although they are young they were able to make a difference in their communities and the wider world. This is a great message for our children to hear every week.

Finally, we share key events from history that happened during any given week. I use two websites to find out the information. This one and this one.

The assemblies themselves are a whistle stop tour of all of the above, but different classes do a more in-depth look at the different areas over the week so the children get a better understanding of the inspiring people and historical events.

In addition to our Cultural Assemblies, we also develop our children’s cultural capital through The Sidlesham 101. It’s a list of 101 things a child should experience before they leave primary school put together by children, parents and staff from our school.