The tale of Christmas Past is one filled with children singing, angels crying and sheep wondering off around the stage as the annual joy of the Nativity, or whatever festive show you usually produce, takes place. This year however, it is unlikely that the normal end of term celebrations can happen with pandemic restrictions on who can enter schools.

The new rules that came into effect last week, allow for these celebrations to go ahead as normal but with social distancing remaining for those who come along to watch, depending on which tier you find yourself in. With space already being at a premium in most school halls, this might mean that the children would have to do a West End like run of performances to ensure that they were able to fit in all the families over a number of days! Anyone who has had to prepare a performance with children who would rather be exploring the painting table, or jumping off the equipment outside, knows that with every show it gets harder and harder to keep the enthusiasm up!

Not only that, but with singing having been largely banned in schools until last week, the usual weeks of preparation for such a performance have not been filled with the sounds of continuous songs and learning of words and actions. Instead different approaches are being thought up.

A popular option is to record a performance and then share it with families by uploading it to something like Tapestry or as an unlisted video on YouTube. The advantage of this is you can reach a much wider audience. Family members who may not normally be able to join in with performances for whatever reason can now watch the whole show. Depending on your editing skills, you could also try recording it in scenes and putting these skills into action as you piece together all the different takes and angles!

One of the easiest things to put together will be a ‘Celebration Video’. Whatever the occasion, getting the children to produce different pieces of work – whether it be artwork, writing or even models - and gathering these into a photo slideshow is a quick way to ensure that every child has something displayed. Asking them to narrate or talk about their work adds the personal touch of the children’s voices to it all.

No matter what you do, it will be appreciated by the families, who understand the stresses that those in education find themselves under as they battle to keep bubbles from popping.  And the memories created by a video or slideshow will be something that they can look back on fondly for years to come.