No Christmas production for Yr3??

[lexie01]

My DD1 came home from school on Friday saying that 'for the first time ever' Yr3 will not be doing a Christmas show this year but an Easter one instead. Does this happen at other schools especially in the KS2 years?

I was really annoyed when she told me as I suspect this has something to do with the size of the school (90 per yr group = nearly 600 children). For me Christmas is still a really important time of the year - my 2 DD's still believe in Santa and it is quite magical. Easter is just not the same (by the way this is not a Catholic or CE school). Should I complain to the teacher??

No

lexie01 just imagine the huge amount of work involved in putting on a nativity play, especially in a school of your childrens size. They have obviously decided that they want to use the time for other things this year, and I think you just have to accept it. TBH I would be delighted if my DCs school shelved it this year as the rehearsals take over, and every year it is the same kids getting the speaking roles. I would prefer the time spent on the national curriculum. I am not a bah-humbug, we will do the whole panto/crib service thing as a family.

Our school have never done a Christmas priduction for the Junior school. They do have a carol concert for the pupils, bu not parents.

Almost all the schools round here that I know of do that - Nativity for the infants, Years 3/4 do an Easter production (not actually about Easter, just at that time of year), and Year 5/6 do a Leavers production at the end of the year, with Year 6s in all the big roles. Or some similar variations of that, depending on size of year groups. But it's only the Nativity for the little ones. The Juniors do carol concerts sometimes at Christmas.

My DD school is the same size as yours and only the nursery, reception and KS 1 take part in a play at Christmas. Other years produce a play at the end of the spring and summer terms. I think it stops huge demand for the hall at the same time. More importantly, if you have more than one child you don't have to sit through two or three plays in a week!

I don't think you should complain about it - believe it or not, schools have to make all kinds of decisions based on the practicalities. It has probably always been a nightmare doing a Christmas production with 90 children to consider, and this year they have either had some additional complications - perhaps a teacher leaving, or lack of space - or else they have just decided that they need to make a change. I'm sure they will still make a huge fuss about Christmas, as schools always do.

My DD took part in school plays from nursery to K2, then they stopped and had them at different times of the year. There are only so many plays that can be put on at one time (scenary and lighting spring to mind) due to space problems. Be glad that they are doing one at all. Mine isn't

Thanks everyone for your comments. I have to say I am really surprised. I know that only reception children do a nativity but older children (from yr1 onwards) have always done a Christmas themed play which they have loved. I guess because at DD1's school you can't join the choir until yr4 I was worried about the lack of Christmas cheer.....by the sound of it though I am the only one!!!!

lexie, I don't know if you are religious at all (I am not, we tend to mark the solstice as the middle of winter) - but would the thing to do be to take your children to the Christingle service or similar child's Christmas service at the local church?

At our school, there's a Nativity for the Infants, and a carol concert for the juniors.

The Juniors do a Summer performance - it's really not practiacl in a school of 420 pupils for everyone to do a Christmas play.

There will be something Chrismassy though - we have PTFA organized Father Christmas and crackers for everyone at lunch on hte ;ast day of term.

Same in ours - Nativity for infants only and a summer production for the juniors. Can easily understand how that makes things more workable for the school - have always thought that these things must be a nightmare to put on.

At DS's school Reception do a production at the end of the Autumn term, Year 1 do a production at the end of the Spring term, and Year 2 and 3 combined do a big production at the end of the Summer term. Then all the children are also involved in a carol concert the day they break up for Christmas, and spend a fair amount of time practising for that.

I don't think there will be any lack of Christmas cheer because they aren't doing a production -- in fact if anything the reverse as the teachers won't have every spare moment taken up worrying about the Christmas play and will be able to do more Christmas-themed activities as a result.

Reception do a nativity play. Yr1/2 do a christmas-themed play (yr2 get the speaking parts, yr1 sing). Yr3/4 do a play in the summer.

This meant that my summber-born dd didn't get to do a nativity play (started school in Jan) which I was a bit about at the time. 3 school plays and ds1's nativity play later, I think I'm over it ...

We used to do:-
Infants did the Christmas play (KS2 did a carol concert thing) - usual deal, reception/y1 get to do the looking cute bit, Y2 get the speaking parts so over the three years everyone got to do everything.
At Easter Y3/4 did some form of generic play/panto thing
After SATs Y5/6 did a musical production

Staggered it over the course of the year. Meant we were forever putting the flipping stage up on a morning though - which you can't do with a cup of coffee in your hand (I proved this conclusively).

I preferred it to everyone doing their thang at Christmas which happened in another school I worked at - invariably this meant that 7/8 of the available rehearsal time was taken up with the KS2 spectacular, and we got the 2.8 minutes before hometime to do ours.

At DD's school only the infants do a school nativity nowadays. t used to be a whole school thing 3 or 4 years back but it was too big and the little ones never got their chance to shine, so it was changed and was so much better or the little ones.

In DD's school the junios do an end of year production instead, which is a big event. Last year it was Oliver, year before Joseph. It is mainly the Y6s who get chance to be the big stars and the others supporting - but eventually everyone gets their chance to be in Y6.