Top Year Six Leavers Assembly Ideas
As an event filled with happy memories, leavers assemblies help Year Six pupils end their primary school journey on a high before starting their next schooling adventure. This milestone should be fun, memorable, and uplifting. After all, leaving primary school can be challenging for children, making it integral that the assembly provides confidence and inspires them to progress in their academic journey.
If you’re struggling to figure out Year Six leaving assembly ideas, don’t worry – we’ve got you covered. Below, we’ll talk you through 12 fantastic leavers assembly ideas to help your students end primary school on a high!
Our Top 12 Leaving Assembly Ideas
1. An Awards Ceremony
This classic leaving assembly idea entails teachers to come up with fun, uplifting award categories. For example, you could have an award for ‘biggest team player’, ‘most helpful with tidying up’ or ‘kindest friend’. Teachers and/or students would then vote for who they think is most deserving, with awards handed out ceremoniously in the assembly.
What you’ll need:
- Awards, such as certificates, badges, trophies, or sweet treats
2. A Big Song and Dance
Putting on a school musical can be a great way to end the school year. There are plenty of leavers musicals designed especially for older primary school students that would make for a fun and memorable end of year celebration! (The Wizard of Oz and Mission Implausible are two of our favourites). For children who are less confident on stage, consider ensemble parts and behind-the-scenes responsibilities as well as protagonist roles.
If you don’t have the time to prepare for a complete musical production, you can still organise a music-led assembly. Choose your favourite leavers assembly songs and sing to your heart’s content! The best leavers songs will cover relevant, uplifting themes – for example, being reflective and thankful for primary school relationships and experiences, as well as getting excited for taking the next step towards secondary school. Plus, they should be easy-to-learn and super catchy!
To make the hectic end-of-year a little bit easier, you’ll find that our leavers assembly packs come with everything you need for your epic leavers assembly - sheet music, lyrics and two versions of the song (one vocal version and one backing track). You can also listen to samples of the songs to see which ones you like the most! Plus, our leavers musical shows come with the whole works - a script, character list, curriculum-linked material, sheet music, lyrics and songs with backing tracks. Piece of cake.
What you’ll need:
- Script
- Music tracks
- Songbooks
- Costumes
- Props
- Optional: Musical instruments
3: A Comedy Act
If you have a few class clowns in Year Six, putting on a comedy act could go down a treat. This will allow more confident group members to get some laughs in front of an audience, while shyer members can help write the scripts, get involved with sound and lighting, or hold up signs to indicate when the audience should laugh.
This leavers assembly idea will help keep the mood light-hearted and thus avoid any heaviness that can come with moving on from primary school.
What you’ll need:
- Comedy props
- Drumkit
- Signs
4: Make a Film or PowerPoint Slideshow
This leaving assembly idea is a firm favourite – who wouldn’t love a slideshow of all their happy memories? For this idea, ask the children to gather their favourite school photographs throughout the years to present in a video timeline. You could supplement these with pictures of the best school events. This could include primary school nativities, environmental efforts, sports days, school trips, and fundraising events. Parents may also have some gems to contribute!
Alternatively, encourage the children to pick their favourite memories to read out or act out in real life instead.
What you’ll need:
- Photos and/or videos
- Projector
- Backing music
5: Reflective Readings
One way to get students confident about secondary school is to make them feel good about themselves. So, another leavers assembly idea for Year Six is to get the children to read a lovely paragraph describing another child’s personality traits. Every child should have a section read out about them, reflecting how they can use their strengths to excel in the next chapter of their school life. Teachers can also help read paragraphs aloud.
What you’ll need:
- Pen and paper
6: Superhero Play
What do children love more than superheroes? Get the children’s help in writing a script about how each of their ‘superpower’ personality traits work together to save the day in a storyline dilemma. Will it be Joe’s kindness that helps an old lady get across a busy road or Ellie’s bravery which stops the same lady from getting robbed? Get creative – the script is entirely up to you!
What you’ll need:
- Superhero costumes
- Props
7: Incorporate Religious Aspects
If you are teaching at a faith school, one leaving assembly idea could be to act out a Bible parable with a great moral. For example, Matthew 25:14-30 teaches children about The Parable of the Talents. This religious story can encourage children to use the skills and capabilities they have available to them as they enter the new world of secondary school, instead of hiding them away.
Alternatively, you could also incorporate religion into a Year Six leavers assembly by getting the children to sing a range of hymns or even learn one on musical instruments. Bands can be a fantastic way to bring people together and showcase their talents – even those whose strengths don’t lie in music can sing amongst a choir or beat a drum in time to the rhythm!
What you’ll need:
- Costumes
- Acting props
- Musical instruments
- Hymn sheets
8: Talent Show
One of our favourite Year Six leavers assembly ideas is a fabulous talent show! This idea is fantastic because it means that every child gets to have a go at something they excel at and really enjoy.
You could even take a twist at the end of the talent show and announce that everyone is the winner to showcase the moral that all talents have equal importance. However, if your class is very competitive, let the rest of the school take a vote over who wins and offer the lucky winner a grand prize.
For children who are less confident, group talent acts are always fun and will help you move through the assembly more quickly. Or, there are plenty of other roles to get involved in, such as making artistic posters for each act, overseeing the music, being the show’s presenter, or collecting the audience’s votes.
What you’ll need:
- Props
- Optional: Winner’s prize
9: Art Exhibition
Children in primary school tend to love getting their hands dirty with paint and pencils, so why not allow their creativity to flourish with an art exhibition? You could ask the Year Six children to paint a depiction of a positive school memory from their primary school journey. Then, get each student to pin their masterpieces on a giant board.
Alternatively, the class could embark on a big mosaic project, which will help the group work as a team and prevent them from getting messy with paints! Those who feel confident can explain their work in the assembly.
What you’ll need:
- Art supplies
- A display board
10: Courtroom Drama
This Year Six leaving assembly idea can add a lot of excitement to the room! Get your class to act out a script centred on a school issue, such as bullying, stealing or cheating. The jury can find the defendant guilty or not guilty – as long as you create a storyline with a positive moral and explain how the issue gets resolved just in time for everyone to go off to secondary school.
You can get the children to help create the script with this one so that they feel fully involved and engaged with its overall message.
What you’ll need:
- Costumes
- Props
11: Present Poetry
Out of all the Year Six leavers assembly ideas we’ve had, this one will definitely help the children to enhance their literacy skills! Poetry is academic but can also be fun to create, so why not encourage the children to write poems about their positive times at primary school?
This strategy also provides an excellent opportunity for children to learn about different types of poems, such as limericks and haikus. Children can present their poetry in the leavers assembly, while the teachers could step in for less confident students.
What you’ll need:
- Just a pen and paper!
12: Tree-planting Party
You could host a tree-planting party if you want to carry out something unique for your Year Six leavers assembly. The children can gather in the schoolyard, and each plant a new tree in memory of their time at primary school.
Teachers and children can sing songs about the environment or make speeches about the environmental friendliness of tree planting and reflect on growth. As trees grow from little twigs into strong trunks, the children will grow as their academic journey continues!
What you’ll need:
- Trees
- Spades
- Spirals
- Canes
We hope this has inspired you about the exciting Year Six leavers assembly ideas you can bring to the table for your own class. It’ll be a memorable occasion for your students, so have fun with it!
For more brilliant Year Six leavers ideas, have a read of our blog. Or, explore our fabulous collection of KS1 assembly songs and primary school musicals – we’re always adding new material to our collections, so there’s something for everyone!