School assembly

Due to the number of students in a typical Chinese school, assemblies are normally held outdoors. It is common for the head of the school to address the entire student body for nearly an hour at the beginning of a school week or month.

School assemblies are usually held in school halls or in outdoor areas such as the school sports complex or basketball courts. School assemblies are held every week, usually on Mondays, where the students will sing the national, state and school anthem while raising the national flag, recite the Rukun Negara and hear reports, speeches and announcements from the school principal, teachers, prefects. Assemblies usually last for an hour. Schools also have smaller scale assemblies on every other day where students would gather in the hall before the start of their first class or when the first bell rings. Teachers and students often make quick and simple announcements for 15 minutes before sending the students in a queue to their classroom as schools in Malaysia uses the homeroom system. This small daily gathering also prevents students from playing truant as some class monitors take attendance when the students are in the hall, loitering around school before class starts and makes it easier to catch and punish those who are late for school (the cut off time for being late is often before class itself actually starts, hence students have to gather in the hall).

Assemblies are usually held outdoors for 20 minutes at least everyday. The teachers and students recite a common prayer. Special announcements are made and students present thought of the day, quiz, attendance is marked. Sometimes students present some skit and other cultural programmes.