School: / Key Stage 1/2 / Date:
Assembly Topic: Red Thumb Day
Aim:
  • Reduce injury and loss of life as vehicle passengers and road users.

Assembly objectives:
  • To make children aware of Red Thumb Day
  • To understand that thumbs up is a positive gesture
  • To understand that using a mobile phone and driving a car do not go together
  • To give children strategies for supporting their parents not using their phones while driving

Resources
  • Four chairs
  • Calculator
  • Steering wheel
  • Zoo Song clip
  • List of questions
  • Thumb ring
  • Prompt card with two lines of song on

Health and safety
  • Adequate space for the 4 chairs away from the path of the children coming in the assembly.
  • Make sure children are in a position to see the screen

Explanation and Activities / Time/Resources
Introduce yourself, say what your role is and what you the assembly is about - Red Thumb Day (this should become clear by the end of the assembly)
Introduce your Rule of Thumb – that when you put your thumb up it means yes or something that you agree with and that thumbs down is no or something you don’t agree with.
Ask the children to practice this by asking them a few questions and getting them to put their thumbs up or down:
  • Do you want longer playtimes at school?
  • Do you want more homework every day?
  • Do you all want a free bar of chocolate every day?
  • Children should you should not be allowed to watch television?
  • Always look and listen when crossing a road?
/ 6 min
Show the children a mobile phone and ask them to put their thumbs up if their parents have one. (the older ones might have one)
Ask them if phones are a good idea and what they can be used for.
Should people (mums and dads) use them if they are driving a car?
Ask them why this is.
Form a car with four chairs, two at the front and two at the back and get volunteers to sit in the car. (Key Stage 1 in the back)
Make sure they all put their seatbelt on.
Give the driver a steering wheel ( this could be a plastic or paper plate) The steering wheel has an arrow at the top and the child who is driving must follow another child moving in front of the car.
Then give the driver another task as well as driving the car. Ask the child to work out the answer to the question 26×59 while still steering the car. / 6 min
Mobile phone
Four chairs
Steering wheel (plastic or paper plate), calculator
Repeat the question again – Should mum and dads use their phones while driving?
What can you do to help them remember?
  • Get them to paint their thumbs or put a thumb ring on (show them a thumb ring (Red Thumb Day)
  • Get them to turn their phone off.
  • Get them to put their phones out of reach.
  • Get them to stop the car to answer it.
Also you could say these two lines from the zoo song to help parents remember:
Stop! Stop! Stop! the children cried
We don’t feel safe it’s the way you drive
Go over the song with the children.
Say half a line at a timeand get the children to repeat the words back to you.
Repeat the whole piece once the children know it. / 4 mins
Thumb rings
Prompt card with two lines of song on
As the children leave play part of the Zoo Song – this can be viewed here:
Hopefully the children will join in.

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