How Can I do Christmas in Schools this Year?

Many chaplains will be unable to visit schools for Christmas services this year because of lockdown restrictions. So what can you do? Here’s a collection of ideas that you could adapt or try:

• On Etsy (and other sellers) you’ll find Nativity Stone sets ranging in price from £10-15. It may be too late to order for this year but if you see a picture of the idea and have a creative friend… Paint a set for each class in your school and give it as a gift. Make it a class challenge/competition to create their own Nativity story and film it for their school or to make their own nativity scene and take a picture.
• Again with the rocks! Paint a simple ‘Baby Jesus’ stone and give one to each class and make it a class challenge/competition to set up a nativity scene or tell the story.
• Make your own video of the Nativity story: a simple stop-go animation can be filmed using lego and your phone. Send the video into school (use one of the free services if it’s a large file: e.g. Dropbox, We Sendit, We Transfer)
• Use Scripture Union’s ‘Light Up Christmas’ resources.
• Use your church grounds or a nearby local park and invite a class to an outdoors Nativity. Or set up a Nativity tableau with a story-teller to tell the story. Or set up an adventure trail to a tableau: find a star in a tree, follow a wise man’s directions, find a sheep en route and read the card with the next bit of the story, etc.
• Record a Christmas assembly on video and send it into your local school.
• Adapt ‘Bubblegum ‘n’ fluff’. It’s a bit of work but make some short videos of each part – the Mad Professor, the Bible story, the explanation of the crafts, etc. You’ll need to make up individual packs that contain everything each child would need.
• Do ’live’ Christmas service using Google Classrooms, or Microsoft Teams, or Zoom, Facebook Live. You’ve probably already mastered this for your Church services so why not for a school service?! And if you aren’t sure how to do this yourself, ask around in your congregation and delegate it: perhaps a challenge to your Youth Fellowship to run it. They’ll be less scared of the technology and also possibly more confident and familiar with operating it.
• ‘Sponsor’ an art competition. Every year Newburgh in Fife has a competition in its local schools for a pupil to design a colourful line drawing related to Christmas. Each year the winner has their design turned into a Christmas street light and put on a lamppost and is invited to switch on the town lights. While they start in March or April for the following Christmas, why not adapt the idea of an art competition? Classes could read the Nativity story and then the school could pick a winning picture inspired by the story. Donate a prize – and turn the winning picture into a photo-print for the school or a Christmas card for sale the following year. Make it an annual competition.

Steve Younger, December 2020

Have a search for ‘Christmas‘ on the CVE website for further ideas!