Class Assemblies Have No Ambition These Days

[SchmGaslighting]

When I was in year one, we did some kind of Harvest Festival type assembly. It was one of many outstanding productions, iirc.

I was The Sun and I wore a stinky oldbeautiful golden shawl and fluttered around the "seeds" to make them grow after my best frenemy friend had done her thang prancing in and out of them in a blue mac being The Rain

The seeds grew and then a farmer came along and harvested them.

The best and clearest reader in the class acted as some kind of narrator and a good time was had by all. I like to imagine it was vaguely diverting for our audience.

DD recently did her class assembly. A bunch of children stood in a line and took it in turns to stand up and read lines like robots. It was excruciating. And boring. I mean, I'm not expecting A Midsummer Night's Fucking Dream or anything, but a little effort for an actual performance, surely? My i-phone was actually physically protesting at having to capture such Pap.

Disclaimer: DD was amazing, obviously. She now has an agent

It's because in this day and age all children have to have equal parts. Even the crap ones. Or their doting mothers whinge about it on mumsnat.

In my day the crap ones had to stand at the back and mime letting me the stars shine.

Exactly as it should be Cervix. Let the crap ones be rocks and trees, and let the budding Oscar-chasers get their bloody groove on FGS!

Also teachers will have had 5 mins to think about and prepare it - or the TA will have - or more likely, the pupils put it together as part of 'independent learning' etc which means it's never as good but everyone claps and thinks it's inspired. TBH if I thought parents were bothering to come in, I'd want them to be impressed at least.

in our day teachers could afford to spend hours on producing productions but nowadays they have so much to embed in the curriculum that they simply dont have the time

OK, so this assembly was crap. But that's not a general trend, it's just that your DD's teacher isn't into them, whereas your teacher from wayback when was. There are plenty of teachers today who will still put their heart and soul into this type of 'shop-window' stuff. And plenty back then who wouldn't have.
But I agree, if you're going to perform to parents, you should make a bloody effort. Otherwise you leave yourself open to people wondering if you're slapdash in other areas too.

DS was in a very similar production recently. They all stood in a row and took it in turn to recite their one little line. They did have actions to do occasionally, but it was a bit lame.

Still, he was excited about it and I enjoyed going into the school and seeing what the assemblies are all about (he tells me almost nothing).

And if I'd been given some complicated costume to create for a 10 minute show then I'd probably be on here complaining about it!

Dcs class assemblies are/were usually quite imaginitive,but not always. As maddie says Teachers have so much to do, then they have to fit in what they can.

I myself never had class assemblies at all througout my school years (at school in the 80's)
The only time i "think" parents were invited was Harvest Festival.

This was a new thing to me when DC's started school.

Dd is in a year group of 100. At the last Year Group Assembly I was screaming for mercy after 45 minutes... and then practically had to be carried out in a straightjacket as it lasted another 45.

I did a spectacular (but very fast-paced ) production of Joseph for an assembly once. The HT was so impressed that she felt the need to explain to parents that is really was all curriculum-linked and they shouldn't worry that too much teaching time had gone into it

Now I go to DD's school and have to listen to the children droning on about the water cycle.

DD's teacher is into drama in a big way so I can only think the time spent on it is for reasons other people have posted.

I kid you not, there were about 30 parents there...all kids had one parent, some had two.