Nativity play ‘banned in schools’

[CoughLaughFart]

A couple of my FB friends have recently shared a post about what a disgrace it is that the nativity play is now ‘banned in schools’ and that the tradition must be restored immediately as this is a CHRISTIAN country (it's always in caps). I have two problems with this:

1. A search for ‘nativity school banned’ brings up several results for stories about schools banning photography at nativity plays, plus a Guardian article about why there’s such a panic about nativity plays being banned in certain circles. There wasn’t one example of the nativity play actually being banned. I also don’t know any parents who have experienced this in real life.

2. As this is indeed a CHRISTIAN country on paper, it happens to have thousands of churches. Anyone desperate to see their child in the nativity play could easily get involved with their parish church so that their children can be part of that one. They could learn all they like about Christianity then, from the experts no less.

AIBU to think that this is a non-existent ‘scandal’ spread on social media by people too lazy to check the facts? And that, with church attendances standing at around 2% of the population, these people aren’t bothered enough about their children learning about Christianity to get up early on a Sunday, and really just want a picture of their child looking cute with a tea towel on their head?

Thanks antigon, very interesting, and as I thought not what would be recognised as a traditional nativity play.

Definite lies

Dd had her nativity last year when she was in reception

Reception have theirs this year

thanks for the link Antigon
as I suspected, not many parts in that version!

DH went to school and sat through many a church service, won the school RE prize (back in the day when it was mostly about Christianity) and helped out in the school church.

No handwriging and wailing at home because no one said 'now little ones some silly people believe that Jesus was real. They are wrong...'

He was born into a Muslim family and he didn't catch 'the religion' or live with the trauma of 'Being Lied To'. His family are rather religious but still give me a nice bottle of wine at Christmas and send me easter eggs. They have even asked for some nice CDs of carols to be sent over for the kids.

A nativity play would be an entirely suitable act of collective worship of a Christian character for a primary school.

I don't think it would be appropriate to conduct your nativity play as an act of worship, it would be very excluding to those children withdrawn from acts of worship or just of other religions, and very inconvenient for the school to have to find alternative activities for those children for the large part of December which is spent on it.

Yes, the Muslim nativity story is interesting. Wouldn't make a very good reception class play though...

In Germany I've seen the story of at Martin ripping his cloak up performed by primary school kids innumerable times, but no nativity.

I live somewhere where admitting that you're having sausages, not fish, for tea on a Friday is tantamount to admitting that you like to dance naked in the woods when the moon is full...

Absolutely dying here reading some of the comments 🤣
"... Along with “Facebook av baned the popy sher dis post if you think it’s a discgrase” posts."
And
"The banning of Nativity plays is right up there with 'one GCSE Gary' complaining that 'Ahmed the neurosurgeon' is taking his job."
I shall remember forever and ever😂
Thank you!

Well...in fact we’ve had no nativity plays in Scotland - so it does seem to be tacitly banned

Must depend where you are it's certainly not a general thing. Our local schools do them every year. My nieces live in a different local authority area and their schools do them.too

So it's still a thing in Scotland

Are they at Catholic school? I go remember easter services though. Apart from the Daffodils, I do really like easter.

Catkind you've just reminded me of the thread where the parent who had removed her child from collective worship and RE activities was suddenly taken aback to find that they were also not given a part in the nativity play.

@immummynoiam - you said there are "no nativity plays in Scotland". Utter bollocks. There maybe aren't in your school but there are in most local to me. Please don't tar us all with whatever brush your school paints with.

Although I guess the kids could all be singing dates instead of sheep - they could sing motivational songs, perhaps inspired by I-think-I-can-I-know-I-can little engine that could ideas... parents could mutter about the son of the head of the PTA being chosen to play the date palm again - serious, conscientious fluent reader could be the vouce of the unborn child from stage left... Could work... Please someone say you're an early years teacher and will try it!

It’s definitely a real thing. We are currently looking at primary schools for one of our DC and all but one have told us that they don’t celebrate the religious aspects of Christmas at all and only teach that Xmas is a ‘fun time of year’. The other is a catholic school which is the other end of the spectrum! A bit sad that there’s nothing in the middle!

I guess I should have said ‘it’s definitely a real thing in some areas’. Not trying to say it’s a thing everywhere

My kids school does it - usually years 3 and 4, along with some insane made up ‘Christmas’ ritual called Chris Tingle, which sounds like a particularly exciting vibrator but actually involves wrapping sellotape round an orange and sticking in it a lit candle and toothpicks threaded with Dolly mixtures. Whoever made that up must have been on glue.

The origin of this appears to have been a 2007 Netmums survey which found that over half of parents said that their children's school no longer did nativity plays and those that did frequently complained that traditional songs were replaced with pop songs and extra characters like punks, Elvis and drunken spacemen were added.

I have to say I find that utterly believable from the New Labour education system which was just as concerned with propagandising as it was with education. This has also given us the delightful generation of millennials who are so utterly offended by their own history and heritage that they are hugely keen on erasing it. Actually I remember I'm the dying days of Labour children in my own city were taken during the Christmas period to cheer a tree dressed with shoes and items of clothing 'to celebrate their shared goal of a multicultural society.' Not sure what the logic behind that was.

Fortunately, it is not 2007. It is 2018. We have had a different government for 8 years and the public sector has slowly changed. Disapproval of this sort of thing is no longer seen as a prerequisite for promotion and they're certainly not banned.

Though how long that will last when millennials are the dominant group among parents of school children is anybody's guess. Not long I would assume.

The christingle thing goes back decades in its current form and is derived from a centuries old tradition.

The addition of jelly tots rather than raisins does seem to be new.

Nativities are usually done in infants IME but less so at juniors. There are so many other aspects of Christmas that can be explored and celebrated, rehashing the nativity story every year is dull .

Not doing the nativity isn't new. I grew up in the 80's & 90's and the only place I did the Nativity play was at Brownies. My first school had a Christmas assembly after school where each class did one song with some props - y3 was particularly memorable when we did Little Drummer Boy and made drums out of biscuit tins. Our poor parents.
In middle school it was a concert but only for choir members, it was a specialist music school so the choir was large but not excessive. The Big Play was at the end of the school year but again was only for the kids who wanted to take part.

My daughter did a nativity play in school a couple of years ago (in Scotland). It was a traditional play, with Mary and Joseph etc, rather than one about Christmas trees. Also the school is very multi-cultural, and perhaps up to a third of the school are Muslim. No one seemed to have any problems. I think sometimes this sort of thing is just scaremongering.

Oh, and the poster who said Catholics don't do it. No. They don't. They've never particularly encouraged their congregants to study the bible or know it's stories either. They only started doing mass in English 50 years ago. Little children acting out bible stories is not part of their tradition for obvious reasons when you consider the different approach they have to bible stories. Considering they're a completely different Church from those found in Protestant Northern European countries like ours it's not really surprising or relevant.

We banned nativity plays in church because we were all sick of sitting through them and the kids were fed up being in them. Nothing to do with Forin People Being Upset.

Do you have a reference for your two stories @DTSMUMBOJO? The only Netmums one I can find is from 2014, at which point we had a Conservative government. I guess that doesn't fit your political agenda though...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-30277344

It's a non existent scandal - my kids old school does a nativity despite 60% of students being of other religions and this years joseph is Muslim (with a very proud mother who I know)