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more by Jason Gardner

Hotshots: Take the Risk?

Title: Take the Risk?

Preparation:

Four cans of food – 3 normal eg fruit salad, one dogfood. Remove labels and number the cans 1-4. Two spoons, can opener, hat.

Activity:

Play tin can roulette with 2 volunteers, they have to pull numbers out of a hat and taste the contents of the corresponding tin.
Stop when someone gets the dog food – don’t get them to actually eat it unless you do the old ‘swap’ trick ( take the bottom off the can, empty it of dog food, wash it and fill it with blackcurrant jelly and mars bar chunks then reseal the bottom as carefully as you can with selotape)

Hotshots: The Real Thing

Title: The Real Thing.

Preparation:

One disgustingly cheap cola and one quality i.e. Coke or Pepsi.
Have a table ready on stage and two plastic cups, one marked A one marked B, pour one of the colas into A, one into B.

Activity:

Get two volunteers up to the stage to do the taste challenge saying:
‘Who thinks they’ve got what it takes to spot the real thing from the fake, the genuine article from the copy?’

Hotshots: The Language of Love.

Title: The Language of Love.

This assembly focuses on sex and is aimed at older year groups.

Opening Illustration:

This work’s best with powerpoint. Display ways of saying ‘Hello’ from different languages, Hint - go to www.wikihow.com/Say-Hello-in-Different-Languages
Accompany this with some upbeat or appropriate music. Eg, Scissor Sisters version of  comfortably numb begins by repeating ‘hello.’

Hotshots: Self Worth

Title: Self Worth

Preparation:

One envelope containing a two pound coin, one envelope containing a 2p coin. On the envelope with the £2 coin write clearly ‘what is in here is definitely worth more than anything I’m going to offer you.’ Both coins should be padded within the envelope so your volunteers can’t feel what they are. And 2 bags containing one of each 2pence sweets, 10p sweet, 50p chocolate bar.

Hotshots: Odd One Out

Title: Odd One Out

NB works better with lower high school years 7-10

Preparation:

You will need two types of same flavour crisp – one ‘quality’ eg Walkers Cheese’n’onion and one cheap brand. Open one of the bags at the bottom – cheap brand would be better and empty contents replacing them with salt’n’vinegar crisps and resealing with clear selotape.

Hotshots: Getting your Goal.

Title: Getting your Goal.

Talk:

What’s the best excuse you’ve ever used for handing in a piece of homework late?

How about the dog ate it? My little sister scribbled all over it or if it’s maths homework how about ‘I came up with a mathematical theory so incredible that genius Stephen Hawkings is still looking into it?’

Or how about this one ‘My homework’s late because I’ve been playing computer games for the last three months.’

That’s not likely to get your teacher to give you an extension but it’s actually the excuse that famous Scottish author Iain M Banks once used. Take it from me, he is famous. He missed the publisher’s deadline for finishing one of his novels because he’d got hooked to playing the strategy game Civilisations. In fact he was so hooked he had to take the games discs and snap them in half so he couldn’t use them!

So what’s stopping you from achieving your goal in life? Your goal may not be to do your homework well but maybe it should be. But how about if you want to be a great musician? What’s getting in the way? Too much time on the Playstation and not enough time practising your instrument?

Well here’s a story of someone who’ll stop at nothing to achieve their goal.
Barbara Haddrill is intent on living an environmentally friendly lifestyle. When she was asked to be a bridesmaid the other year for a friend in Brisbane Australia she realised that flying there would produce 5.2 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

So what did she do? She took the bus instead. Well several buses, and a few trains and a boat. First to London, then to Moscow by coach, more coaches and a train to Shanghai and a boat from there to Brisbane.

It cost her four times the air fare and the journey was 49 times longer than flying, but that didn’t put her off. Because even though she took all those trains, coaches and a boat her journey only produced 1.4 tons of carbon dioxide.

You might think she’s taking a great stand against the pollution flying causes. You might just think she’s nuts but you have to admire her for not letting anything get in the way of her achieving a life goal.

So think about what’s getting in the way of you achieving your goal? Could be computer games, could be friends who encourage you to play up in class when you actually want to study.

Think about it. What steps do you need to take in order to become the person you really want to be?

Further Illustrations:

Hotshots: Facing Challenges

Title: Facing Challenges

Preparation:

Two cleaned out Yoghurt cartons into which set a nice flavoured jelly. Two bamboo sticks of equal length – at least 1.5 metres. Attach a teaspoon to the end of each  - gaffa tape is the easiest method. Create a gaffa tape handle of about a hands width at the opposite end from the spoons.

Activity:
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