Year 10 Assembly

By Ludmilla Nadeera Kang 10C

Having been in class and learning constantly, it is important that once in a while, students gather to partake in an activity to apply their knowledge into a more multi-dimensional context while being able to refresh their minds in something entertaining for the whole school community. The assembly is intended to accomplish exactly this. As school is the cornerstone of a student's life, assemblies just help them collect a great deal of strength to do well and end their week on a positive note. For the student performers, it is such a great opportunity for us to showcase our talents in the Arts, challenging the whole angkatan in our theatre skills to work together and perfectly show what we are capable of doing.

The assembly isn’t a one-person job. Given only a short period of time to prepare, it may be a challenge to some extent, designing a whole performance involving approximately 80 people. Coordinating the assembly requires a great deal of teamwork and trust between the students, as each person must know their role. It is also vital that everyone working in the assembly has the right intention and good motivation to work towards creating a great performance, that they are committed to their assigned jobs at all times, even if this means limiting the group to a smaller population to increase efficiency. This ‘positive energy’ is essential in ensuring that the production process goes as smoothly as it possibly can. Talking about something more technical, planning is the most important part. I, as the assembly coordinator, took a whole lot of time in just the planning process before assigning tasks to the larger population of my angkatan. I made sure that what I wanted was made clear, choosing the right forms of communicating ideas to my peers. This reduced any chance of misunderstanding or confusion, since I had everything planned out down to the details already.

I’ve been working as one of the coordinators for angkatan 22’s assemblies ever since we were in Year 7. In doing so, I noticed how much potential my peers have. It is safe to say that the chemistry between us is really good, and that we are able to put on each other a great amount of trust and support in doing anything. Being on the same page about most things, it comes naturally for us to work towards the same goal, and being caring and supportive for each other throughout the process. This aids so much in the creation of our assembly, since with great chemistry, as if we could read each other’s minds, we know the strategies that will help us in effectively showcasing the performances. Let’s not forget the supremely talented students, from actors, musicians, film-makers, script writers that definitely demonstrate and embody the potential our angkatan possesses in showing a great performance.

Despite this, not everything was perfect or went smoothly in the process. After doing the assembly, I reflected and found areas of improvement.

We decided to take on the theme of ‘principled’ for the main Learner Profile Attribute of our assembly for a couple of reasons. Following the previous angkatan assemblies which took on themes of their assembly based on the IB Learner Profile, this was also the recommendation from the school authorities that we had a fixed theme, which would in a way serve a purpose in teaching some sort of lesson to the audience. Considering the fact that our assembly was the second to last, the IB Learner Profiles we could do were limited, such that the themes ‘risk-taker’, ‘communicator’, ‘reflective’ and more weren’t an option. We then resorted to brainstorming the positives, negatives and possibilities for different IB Learner Profiles and concluded that ‘principled’ was perfect. Based on our definition and interpretation, principled relates to being truthful, respectful and standing up for what is right. This makes it a complex theme, which is good in making our plot line multidimensional, and not boring. With many aspects within the definition, we thought that the theme ‘principled’ would be an interesting topic to present.

Going in a chronological manner from beginning to end; the 28th of February, we underwent quite a memorable journey. Assigned as the coordinator, I began by doing a brainstorming session with the year level, working together to come up with as many ideas as we could relating to being principled. With these ideas in mind, I then spent some time to pick out the best ideas and developed them even further. Once these ideas were fixed, I proceeded to translate these ideas into words and visuals. I created the script and detailed rundown of the show, along with the help of my peers. This rundown sheet was our ‘weapon’ that we consistently utilized throughout to efficiently combine all aspects that were required; from the stage layout, the basic plot, the performers needed, the props needed, and any other additional notes. When this was done, I divided the year level to multiple sub-divisions such as actors, props, transition crew, lighting, multimedia and musicians, introducing the plan I created to each team. They then proceeded to go about their work, while I helped out with any issues, supervising the process as a whole; the actors practiced their lines, the transition crew revised the stage plans, the props team gathered materials, the multimedia team filming and editing videos and the musicians rehearsing. Which led us to the final day, where beforehand, we had one practice session on sage to put everything together.

This said, the assembly was a great experience to participate and coordinate. The process of doing so just made my angkatan and I realize the importance of teamwork and being able to organize big groups of people to create an original work of our own. We were glad the assembly came out well and received positive feedback, with our aim of sharing a message to the audience and entertaining them, ending the week on a positive note.