So this is Christmas
What do we tell the children?
Standing in the pulpits on concealed boxes, on each side of the choir, two seven-year-old boys prepare to address the empty pews of a church. Behind them, on benches or cross-legged on the floor before the altar, sit their classmates. They’re from All Saints Church of England primary school, in the north London parish of Childs Hill, here for the final rehearsal of this year’s nativity play.
And I’m here because, in a country that remains officially Christian, Church of England schools do more than perhaps any other organisation to counter the almost overwhelmingly commercial thrust of Christmas in the 21st century. You don’t have to be a member of the church – I’m not – to think that’s a good wheeze.
The first boy sniffs deeply, wipes his nose on his cuff, then reads from a paper on the lectern before him: “Long ago, in the time of King Herod, there was a girl called Mary…” Recognising her cue, a girl from Year 2 with braided hair, wearing the school uniform of navy blue sweatshirt and dark trousers, steps quietly forward.
The second narrator, from the other pulpit, takes up the story. “One day, God sent the Angel Gabriel to Mary.” At this, a sweet-looking waif glides from the choir into the ad hoc performance space. He has a dreamy expression and hair that stands on end where he has slept on it – but his voice is surprisingly like a car alarm. “DON’T BE AFRAID!” he urges Mary, though seeming to address himself to the neighbouring parish. “You are going to have a special baby!” Then he glides away again.
Over the next hour or so, the head of infants at All Saints, Miss Griffin, assisted by several other teachers and classroom assistants – notably Miss Thomas, on piano – steers the rehearsal with a light touch. Boys and girls from across the boroughs of Barnet, Brent and Camden – and a wide assortment of ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds – step forward to play with high seriousness the roles assigned to them: third wise man, second innkeeper, foremost sheep.
Later in the week, their interpretation of the Nativity will be performed in front of parents. Then there will be a public performance of a musical play by the juniors. This is less Christmassy, taking as its source the stern Old Testament story of Jonah and the sinful citizens of Nineveh (“Come on God, zap them now!”); though the deft adaption by Mr Taylor, deputy head, does incorporate a pantomime cow.
Christmas came early at All Saints – as it must at all schools, because they break up before the real thing. The process started on the first day of Advent, with an address at assembly by Sian Davies, the head, on the Annunciation. Before breaking up on Thursday, pupils also enjoyed a performance by a visiting drama group; a bazaar in the school hall with guest appearance by Father Christmas; Christmas parties; a church service led by Father John Wainwright, the local vicar and chairman of the school governors; and prizegiving for pupils who’ve been particularly hardworking or kind to each other.
In the process, they are expected also to pick up a fair bit of knowledge about Christmas. To what extent they do this because parents actually want it is open to question, however. Inner-city church schools are in high demand among parents who believe them to be better at infusing discipline and exam success. In areas where they are particularly oversubscribed, parents who are not religious – or not Christian, anyway – have been known to attend church frequently, for months, just to get their children a place at a Church of England school. But this occurs most often at secondary schools, of which there are only 16 out of 150 in the London diocese. Church primary schools, as often as not, boast large numbers of pupils from other traditions. At one, Christchurch in Spitalfields, it’s arguable that Anglicans have been a minority for centuries – as wave after wave of immigrant Hugenots, Jews and Bangladeshis, among others, have sent their children there.
All Saints includes among its 195 pupils representatives of other major faiths, though not – surprisingly in this part of north London – any Jewish children. Nativity scenes painted by pupils have in the past been known to feature pigs – creatures unlikely to have figured in the Jewish-owned stables of Judah. That’s no longer likely to happen. As required by the national curriculum – but also by a higher authority – religious education at Church of England schools does take account of other faiths. “We run our schools according to the two great commandments, which are to love God and to love our neighbour,” says Liz Wolverson, head of school support services at the London Diocese. “And to do that you need to know something about your neighbour.”
Teaching about other faiths is not the only problem, she says. Another is finding teachers confident about teaching the Anglican creed. “A lot of people, over the last 30 years, were not given much religious education. Most teachers will have had just a couple of hours training in RE, the bare minimum. Then they’re expected to teach this statutory subject, the one subject they’re most frightened of teaching because they’re worried about causing offence.
“It seemed to me that we needed something that made this more manageable.” So she set about devising detailed guidelines, with specific lesson plans for each age group throughout the year. One subject that comes up for all pupils every year is Christmas. As they get older, lessons become more nuanced: considering, say, the difference between Matthew (wise men) and Luke (shepherds). “We needed something that teachers can just pick up, telling them where to find more in books, and what to draw out of children, to give them a great, rich experience.”
In training teachers and school governors, Wolverson often hands out piles of Christmas cards and asks them to sort the images into two piles: sacred and secular. This often causes difficulty, as people place robins, snow-covered churches and even poinsettias among the religious images. The head of All Saints has subsequently used the same test on Year Six; and as an experiment Miss Davies asked pupils in the run-up to Christmas to draw pictures for Financial Times readers. She agreed not to steer them and was clearly relieved that the majority, working at home over the weekend, did indeed choose religious themes. Most common was the visit of kings, wise men and/or shepherds to baby Jesus in the stable where he was born.
The secular imagery, though frequently charming, included some predictable themes: Christmas trees, snowmen, a reindeer. Less conventional were items submitted by infants who, though well rehearsed in the Nativity by Miss Griffin, were not unduly influenced by that. So, in a spirit of seasonal good cheer, here’s to “The Dinosaur Christmas” (“They’re going to eat the tree!” reveals the artist, hardly bothering to conceal his excitement), baby Jesus in a snowstorm, and a colourful representation of Batman and Batgirl standing beside a cupboard. “I wanted to draw a Christmas tree,” says the third Shepherd, who sketched this last item. “But there wasn’t room. Was that wrong?”
1201 words. First published 20 December 03. © FT Magazine
20 December 03