Tinsel and Tea Towels

It’s that time of year! My own memories of teaching in December are heavily flavoured with the mad scramble to rehearse Christmas carols, find a willing old man who fits the Santa costume, solve the Christmas card delivery conundrum, and fit all the nativity performers with appropriate costumes – thank heavens for tea towels!

It fascinates me to see how the supermarkets now sell beautiful ready-made costumes: angels, Mary, Joseph, shepherds and even donkeys hang along the aisles. I would have appreciated these as a busy working parent myself, but I am certain schools will still rummage through the cupboard to see if they can find last year’s tunics!

Cost is a different matter though and I do have some more stringent views over the burden placed on parents to fund such matters.

And then there are the Christmas cards. Whilst Christmas cards are rapidly becoming an out-dated mode of greeting, the tradition is still alive among children in primary school. But how to deliver: centrally or individually? The central post box works well: children will deposit their entire pile of cards and some older pupils spend lunchtime sorting and categorising, trying to decipher which ‘Oliver’ a card is intended for. A post prandial delivery is made causing mayhem in the classroom and by home time, the cards are already mixed up and unidentifiable. Distribution all at once in the classroom is not so popular where a cultural mix could cause some children to feel isolated, or indeed pressure could build to send cards when it is neither appropriate nor affordable for individuals. The alternative of allowing children simply to hand out the cards whenever they choose is successful in some settings but causes undesired chaos in others – and always at just the wrong moment.

For teachers, the run up to Christmas is, without a doubt, a stressful time of the school year. Juggling all the issues above does not let them off the classroom duties. Lessons must still be delivered but with increasingly distracted children. Rehearsals, assessments, school performance tickets for parents, marking books, Christmas party arrangements…… the pandemic Christmas at least saved us from some of these and we would be forgiven for looking back fondly in part on last year.

One thing that is distinctly easier than in years gone by is the termly assessment data collection. No longer is it necessary to fill in and submit spreadsheets for someone to enjoy number crunching all holiday: simply find an efficient online tool (such as Educater) and your analysis generates itself. Why we ever thought Christmas was a good point for data collection is a mystery, but it is still here for most of us. Hats off to the sensible schools who have shifted to November or even January to avoid the extra stress.

Maybe one job we should promise ourselves for the New Year is a review of our tracking of pupil data. If we use a system, is it serving us as best it can? And if we don’t, book a free demonstration of Educater and look forward to next Christmas with one less burden.