Ethos Education

Missing Link: How should we respond to being ‘the odd one out’?

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Assembly Objective:

  • How should we respond to being ‘the odd one out’? This assembly explores feelings associated with being excluded and references a biblical call for inclusion.

Film:

  • Missing Link (Lionsgate, 2019) certificate PG, click here to buy the DVD online.

Bible:

Supporting Values Education:

  • Rule of Law: The law applies to everyone and, therefore, no British citizen can be denied their human rights.
  • Mutual Respect and Tolerance: British society aspires to be inclusive of those with different faiths and beliefs.

OPENING ACTIVITY

 Odd One Out: (Activity)

  • Using slides 2-14 from The Missing Link PowerPoint the children have to guess which of the three animals depicted on each slide is the ‘odd one out’.

FILM CLIP 1

  • From Missing Link (Lionsgate, 2019) certificate PG.
    • Start time: 00:15:39 (Sir Lionel’s horse crosses the stream.)
    • End time: 00:22:33 (Sir Lionel and Mr Link shake hands.)
    • Clip length: 6 minutes and 54 seconds.
  • If you cannot play this clip from the DVD, instead say, ‘Prompted by an anonymous letter, Sir Lionel travels to the Pacific Northwest to find the Sasquatch. Lionel is overjoyed to discover that the creature is real as he will now be able to join the ‘Society of Great Men’. The creature, however, has lured Sir Lionel to the Pacific Northwest in order to ask for his help. He wants to travel to the Himalayas to meet with the Yetis whom he believes to be his cousins. Sir Lionel agrees to take him and the pair shake hands.

FILM CLIP 2

  • From Missing Link (Lionsgate, 2019) certificate PG.
    • Start time: 01:15:00 (The Yeti Queen is being groomed.)
    • End time: 01:22:16 (The three friends pull themselves back onto the ice bridge.)
    • Clip length: 7 minutes 16 seconds
  • If you cannot play this clip from the DVD, instead say, ‘Sir Lionel, Mr Link and Adelina escape the palace of the Yeti Queen and make their way across the ice bridge. However, Lord Piggott-Dunceby and others are blocking their escape. Lord Piggott-Dunceby doesn’t want the world to know about the existence of Mr Link and the Yetis. Sir Lionel tells him that he no longer wants to join the ‘Society of Great Men’ as he has become friends with Mr Link. Lord Piggott-Dunceby begins to smash the ice bridge but only succeeds in causing his own death. The three friends are left dangling on a rope from the far end of the broken bridge. The bounty hunter employed by Lord Piggott-Dunceby tries to make them fall to their deaths but the three friends work together to save themselves.

TALK

Scripted Talk

Download The Missing Link PowerPoint for use with this talk.

  • [PowerPoint slide 1]
    • Welcome everyone to our assembly this morning. It is based on the film, Missing Link. One of the film’s main themes is ‘exclusion’. This means being deliberately kept out or left out of something. The film also plays with some ideas from science, so to get our brains thinking about exclusion and science, let’s play a science version of Odd One Out.
  • [PowerPoint slide 2]
    • (Tell the children that you are going to show them a series of slides each with images of three different animals. Using their scientific knowledge of animal classification, they are going to identify the odd one out.)
  • [PowerPoint slides 3 – 14]
    • Odd One Out game.
  • [PowerPoint slide 15]
    • (Congratulate the children on the extent of their scientific knowledge.) It is now accepted as a fact that humans are related to other primates such as chimps and monkeys. But this has not always been the case. In the Victorian era, scientists and others argued about it. Some people believed that if they could find the last common ancestor shared by humans and other primates in the fossil record, then this would settle the argument once and for all. This last common ancestor is known as ‘the missing link’ and gives its name to the title of our film.
  • [PowerPoint slide 16]
    • In the film, Sir Lionel Frost, a famous explorer, receives an anonymous letter informing him of the existence of the last living missing link. He is very eager to find it, as, if he is successful, he will be admitted into the ‘Society of Great Men’, a group of Britain’s leading scientists. He travels all the way from London to a very remote part of North America.
    • Play film clip one from Missing Link (Lionsgate, 2019) certificate PG.
      • Start time: 00:15:39 (Sir Lionel’s horse crosses the stream.)
      • End time: 00:22:33 (Sir Lionel and Mr Link shake hands.)
      • Clip length: 6 minutes and 54 seconds.
    • If you cannot play this clip from the DVD, instead say, ‘Prompted by an anonymous letter, Sir Lionel travels to the Pacific Northwest to find the Sasquatch. Lionel is overjoyed to discover that the creature is real as he will now be able to join the ‘Society of Great Men’. The creature, however, has lured Sir Lionel to the Pacific Northwest in order to ask for his help. He wants to travel to the Himalayas to meet with the Yetis whom he believes to be his cousins. Sir Lionel agrees to take him and the pair shake hands.
    • (Allow children time to reflect upon the clip.) What do Sir Lionel and Mr Link both have in common? (They both feel like the ‘odd one out’.) Ask the children to think about a time when they felt excluded. How did it affect them? What did they do about it? What advice would they offer to the characters in the film?
  • [PowerPoint slide 17]
    • Following many adventures, Sir Lionel and Mr Link finally reach the lost kingdom of Shangri La where the last remaining community of Yetis live safe from the dangers posed to them by humans. The Queen rejects Mr Link as a member of the Yeti family and instead orders him, Sir Lionel and their friend, Adelina, to be thrown into a pit. The three friends escape but, unknown to them, members of the Society of Great Men have been following them intent on destroying any evidence of a missing link.
    • Play film clip 2 from Missing Link (Lionsgate, 2019) certificate PG.
      • Start time: 01:15:00 (The Yeti Queen is being groomed.)
      • End time: 01:22:16 (The three friends pull themselves back onto the ice bridge.)
      • Clip length: 7 minutes 16 seconds
    • If you cannot play this clip from the DVD, instead say, ‘Sir Lionel, Mr Link and Adelina escape the palace of the Yeti Queen and make their way across the ice bridge. However, Lord Piggott-Dunceby and others are blocking their escape. Lord Piggott-Dunceby doesn’t want the world to know about the existence of Mr Link and the Yetis. Sir Lionel tells him that he no longer wants to join the ‘Society of Great Men’ as he has become friends with Mr Link. Lord Piggott-Dunceby begins to smash the ice bridge but only succeeds in causing his own death. The three friends are left dangling on a rope from the far end of the broken bridge. The bounty hunter employed by Lord Piggott-Dunceby tries to make them fall to their deaths but the three friends work together to save themselves.
    • Allow children time to reflect upon the clip. What did Sir Lionel and Mr Link learn about their desire to be accepted by others? Why did Lord Piggott-Dunceby want to kill Mr Link and cut off any contact between humans and the Yetis? Why do Sir Lionel and Mr Link no longer feel excluded?
  • [PowerPoint slide 18]
    • At the time of Jesus, many different people felt excluded because they were ill or disabled or of a different religion, or a woman or a child. Jesus, however, was welcoming to everyone and some of his followers came from excluded groups such as tax collectors and women.
  • [PowerPoint slide 19]
    • After Jesus’ death and resurrection, one of his most famous followers, Paul of Tarsus wrote a letter to a group of fellow Christians living in what is now Turkey. He reminded them of the example of Jesus and how they had to include everyone in their church. (Share the Bible quotation with the children. You may wish to expand upon it to include other in/out groups such as rich and poor, young and old, strong and weak, etc. What do the children make of this call for inclusion? Do our differences matter or are our similarities more important?)

Headings and bullets

  • [PowerPoint slide 1]
    • Welcome.
  • [PowerPoint slide 2]
    • Odd One Out.
  • [PowerPoint slide 3]
    • Images of a polar bear, a panda and a koala.
  • [PowerPoint slide 4]
    • Image of a koala.
  • [PowerPoint slide 5]
    • Images of a shark, a dolphin and a fish.
  • [PowerPoint slide 6]
    • Image of a dolphin.
  • [PowerPoint slide 7]
    • Images of a chicken, a blackbird and a bat.
  • [PowerPoint slide 8]
    • Image of a bat.
  • [PowerPoint slide 9]
    • Images of an eel, a water snake and a cobra.
  • [PowerPoint slide 10]
    • Image of an eel.
  • [PowerPoint slide 11]
    • Images of a fox, a dog and a hyena.
  • [PowerPoint slide 12]
    • Image of a hyena.
  • [PowerPoint slide 13]
    • Images of a human, a bear and a chimp.
  • [PowerPoint slide 14]
    • Image of a bear.
  • [PowerPoint slide 15]
    • The missing link.
  • [PowerPoint slide 16]
    • Sir Lionel Frost.
    • Play clip 1.
  • [PowerPoint slide 17]
    • The Lost Kingdom of Shangri La.
    • Play clip 2.
  • [PowerPoint slide 18]
    • Jesus welcomes everyone.
  • [PowerPoint slide 19]
    • Galatians 3:28.

Photo copyright for The Missing Link PowerPoint: Slide 1 Laika Studios / Annapurna Pictures / Slide 2 iStockphoto.com / Slide 3 polar bear Pixabay.com panda Pixabay.com koala (also Slide 4) Pixabay.com / Slide 5 shark Pixabay.com dolphin (also Slide 6) Pixabay.com fish Pixabay.com / Slide 7 chicken Pixabay.com blackbird Pixabay.com bat (also Slide 8) Pixabay.com / Slide 9 eel (also Slide 10) Pixabay.com water snake Pixabay.com cobra Pixabay.com / Slide 11 dog Pixabay.com fox Pixabay.com hyena (also Slide 12) Pixabay.com / Slide 13 bear (also Slide 14) Pixabay.com human Pixabay.com (also Slide 15) chimpanzee Pixabay.com / Slide 15 question mark Pixabay.com / Slide 16 Gigazine.net / Slide 17 i.gzn.jp / Slide 18 image 4 Lumoproject.com / Slide 19 image 13 Lumoproject.com 

RESPOND

Reflection

  • How does it feel to be ‘the odd one out’?
  • How might you make your classroom / school a place where everyone feels included?
  • Sir Lionel tells Lord Piggott-Dunceby that Mr Link is more of a man than he will ever be. What do you think he means by this?
  • How many different in/out groups can you think of in the world?
  • Make a list of the similarities between you and another person in your class. Which list is more important?

Prayer

  • Dear God, we praise you for making us all different. But help us to remember that despite our differences, we share many similarities. Help us not to let our differences cause us to make people feel like the ‘odd one out’. May our school be a place where everyone feels that they have a place and where they are always treated with respect. Help us to be the generation who heals the many divisions in the world. Amen.

YOU WILL NEED:

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