There’s nothing quite like the run-up to Christmas in a school. The tinsel, the excitement, the merry, childish voices singing carols interspersed with arguments about who it was that started singing the infamous Batman version of Jingle Bells. 

And, on top of it all, there’s the Christmas production extravaganza and the emotional rollercoaster that goes with it. Forget the five stages of grief - here are the five stages of Nativity…

1. Hope
   This year’s production is going to be the best ever. Mary will not be sick on Joseph. The choir will sound less like a swarm of apathetic bees and more like the angelic host they are dressed as. Hollywood will shortly be in touch. In this state of giddy euphoria you accidentally sign up the whole school to an Andrew Lloyd Webber-esque epic, complete with symphony orchestra. What could possibly go wrong?
   
   
   
   
    
2. Creeping panic
   Unsurprisingly, these plans do not survive contact with reality as the children stomp all over your creative vision, forgetting their lines and failing to deliver your hilarious dialogue with sufficient aplomb. You find yourself awake in the small hours wondering if cream bath towels are really working as costumes for the sheep and how best to coordinate the line-dancing curtain call.
   
   
   
   
    
3. Active panic
   As opening night approaches, your panic shifts up a gear. You resort to playing the production soundtrack as background music in your lessons, in the hope that it will work its way into the children’s memories via osmosis. Your 3am wake-ups are now less logistical ponderings and more nightmare scenarios in which none of your class actually show up for opening night.
   
   
   
   
    
4. Acceptance
   At a staff counsel of war, you all agree that the most important thing now is to just have something to perform when the parents arrive. There’s nothing more you can do. If the inn-keeper forgets his one line, you’ll have to fill it in from the sidelines. And if Mary drops the baby doll again, it will at least provide some light relief. The parents will understand. 
   
   
   
   
    
5. Pride
   Despite everything, your euphoria returns once the curtain goes up. You find yourself wiped clean of the weeks of stress as your pupils give the performance of their lives. You have never been so proud of them. “Is it dusty in here?” you whisper to your TA, “I think I have something in my eye…”
   
   
   
   
    

Kate Townshend has been teaching in schools in Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire for more than 10 years. She tweets as @_KateTownshend

Want to keep up with the latest education news and opinion? Follow TES on Twitter and like TES on Facebook