We all have our own well-defined jobs for the nativity play in our three-teacher infant school. The two class teachers cast and rehearse the script, the classroom assistant deals with the costumes and props, and I choose the play and look after the music. Simple, really.

But when I sent off for inspection copies of various commercial productions, I found they were uniformly dreadful (with apologies to those who wrote themuse themthink they are great). What I wanted was the story as it is in the book straight with some appropriate songs and congregational carols. What I found were twee little tales which bore scant relation to the real Christmas story, with trite little songs. I decided that I could write more appropriate songs myself.

Then I had an even better idea to let the children write the songs. I was inspired by a children’s illustrator who came to visit the school, and wrote and illustrated a story in 30 minutes flat, using the children’s ideas. I used her technique and applied this to songwriting.

I put up a large sheet of paper and drew a stave on it (five parallel lines). We discussed the part of the story we were going to write about, and the feelings of the characters. I then sang them a first line (eg “The angel said to Mary . . .”) and asked for the words for the next line. All reasonable suggestions were written down and voted on. We settled on, “Now don’t you be afraid”. Then I asked if anyone could hum a possible tune for that bit.

Occasionally a song seemed to be getting “stuck” so I would suggest a change in the middle. The melody of that first song was contained within six notes so for the second half of the song, I suggested that we start on a much higher note. Once we had decided on the melody for each line, I scrawled it down on the stave. I can use conventional notation, but it doesn’t matter how you record the song, as long as you can reproduce it accurately.

This was all done in the context of a lesson, in which, for example, we might be looking at sequences patterns of notes repeated at different pitches (as in the third section of “The Ash Grove”), and I would then ask them for a sequence pattern in their composition. There are all kinds of teaching points in this type of exercise the use of repetition; rhyme; musical form; the mood of a song. Having the play as a goal earthed the whole proceedings wonderfully. And, of course, having written the song together, the children knew the words and music as soon as I did.

Some songs worked better than others. I spent an exhausting 20 minutes trying to get from my first line, “The shepherds watched their sheep” past their “The night was dark and . . .” Having repeatedly asked for a word with only one sound to fill the line, I got suggestions like, “The night was dark and the shepherds put the cows in the stable with baby Jesus.” However, by dint of much perseverance, I eventually got a one syllable word. It was “light”. We abandoned that song. The best song was about Mary and Joseph, not forgetting the donkey, a good steady travelling-to-Bethlehem walking song. The words adopted for the start of the middle section, after we had discussed how Mary and Joseph would be feeling, were “Mary’s legs are really tired.” OK, I suppose that would do who can think of the next line? “Joseph’s legs are really tired.” And the next? You’ve guessed it. But it was their song, so it stayed.

When it seemed that the music was really going to happen, I told the other teachers where we were up to, and they immediately said they would like the children to write their own dialogue as well. Casting was done, and the story discussed. We only have 42 children in our school, and of course everyone had to have a part, so we had a few extra characters in the inn a waiter, a bar man, a receptionist, and a few travellers. The teachers sat by with notebooks at the ready to catch the dialogue as it flowed so that it could be formed into a script. Most of our speaking actors were aged six.

I think writing our own nativity will become an annual event, as it was such fun, and so worthwhile. The curriculum areas covered were many and varied.

Sadly the best bits of the dialogue had disappeared by the time the performance came round but even so, the play was much enjoyed by its audiences. We teachers had enough laughs to sustain us in the gloom of a post-OFSTED period.

Most importantly, the children in our little church school, in a largely non-church-going area, were able to enter into the Christmas story in a depth which I hope and pray will remain with them as a counterbalance to all the tinsel and commercialism which is all most of them would otherwise associate with Christmas.

Carol Rookwood is headteacher of St Mark’s Church of England infants’ school

Mary: Joseph, Joseph, we’re going to have a baby.

Joseph: Oh dear; I don’t think we can afford it.

Mary: Have you any room in your inn?

Receptionist: No.

Joseph: Come on, we’ll try somewhere else.

Waiter: I haven’t said anything yet.

Teacher: All right, they can have a meal. Say something, waiter.

Waiter: Wotcher want?

Mary: Wotcher got?

Waiter: Sausage, chips and beans or chicken and chips.

Mary: Have you any room in your inn?

Innkeeper: I’ll go and find out.

Mary: Come on, Joseph, we might as well have a drink while we’re waiting.

Barman: Wotcher want?

Mary: Wotcher got?

Barman: Wine, beer, orange or Ribena.

Mary: I’ll have a white wine.

Teacher: Do you think that’s wise if you’re having a baby?

Mary: P’raps you’re right. I’ll have a fizzy orange instead.

Joseph: Have you any room in your inn?

Innkeeper: No.

Helpful fellow-traveller: Have you tried The Walnut Tree down the road?

Shepherds: May we come in?

Mary: (at the top of her voice) Yes, come in quietly, I’ve just got the baby off to sleep. How did you know where to find us?

Shepherds: An angel told us.

Mary: Oh, I saw an angel as well. I expect it was the same one.

Enter first king and page.

King: I have brought a gift for the baby.

Mary: What is it?

King: Gold Mary: Thank you very much.

Enter second king and page.

Second king: I have brought a gift for the baby.

Mary: What is it?

Second king: Frankincense: Mary: It smells like flowers.

Enter third king and page.

Third king: I have brought a gift for the baby.

Mary: What is it?

Third king: Myrrh.

Mary: Thank you very much. Are there any more of you out there?

The children of St Mark’s Church of England infants’ school in Eccles, Aylesford, Kent