To say I was anxious was an understatement. As I sat on the hard wooden chairs of a slightly stuffy assembly hall, my hands were clammy as my daughter’s class obediently walked on stage. I could see Iona looking nervously at the floor, unwilling to engage with the audience she stood in front of, because the idea of performing terrified her. She had history – throughout the nursery years, the nativity plays and assemblies were torturous, for both me and her. She always ended up in my arms, sobbing, unable to face an audience and ashamed that she found something so difficult that her friends seemed to find so easy.

It was the first term of big school, an even more scary environment. Not only were well-wishing parents there, but also the daunting older years, the eight-year-olds she marvelled at from a distance in the playground. And this time she had a singing part. I was convinced it would be a disaster.

How wrong I was. As her time came, she stood at the stage, visibly shaking. Her little four-year-old voice started shakily.  But as she sang, her voice got stronger.

“We are very perfect little angels, and we are extremely neat, we are very perfect as can be from our heads to our feet. Oh how angelic we can be, oh how angelic, don’t you agree!”

As the audience laughed, her face changed, a beaming smile shone and I couldn’t believe my eyes. As I hugged her afterwards she clung tight to me, rejoicing in her victory. “Mummy, I’m so happy,” she told me, “I feel like I want to cry”.

This moment was so much more than about pride. I loved watching my daughter charm her audience, but mostly I loved seeing her grow as a person. This was her tipping point, her transition from shy, introverted child whose school life was so racked with insecurity that it threatened to deprive her of its benefit, into a girl with the confidence to take a risk. With immediate effect, she became the first to put her hand up to volunteer, to answer a question she wasn’t sure she knew the answer to, to sleep over at friends’ houses, to try new sports. She was a changed person.

Which is why reports out this week that schools have started to cancel nativity plays amid concerns about Covid make me shudder. It’s not a personal concern; with confident children who have already reaped the rewards of assemblies, school plays and nativities, it’s not my children I feel for. It’s the children in reception and year one for whom the majority of their conscious life has been defined by lockdowns.

And the adults are going to lose out too. Watching your child perform in a highly rehearsed play which they are passionate about and supremely proud of is one of the most rewarding experiences as a parent. I remember watching my son, Ludo’s, first nativity.  It was on his fifth birthday and for reasons that I’m still baffled by, he was playing The Chief Planet. But in spite of this I wept with pride as his class, a motley crew begarbed in dishcloths and hastily put together cardboard, sung sweetly about the joy of new life, clutching a rather haggard doll around a crib. The 40 minutes of this play had made the three days of arduous labour and an emergency caesarean totally worth it. “I’d do it all again,” I thought, “just for this performance.”

Nativity plays are not just an Instagrammable opportunity for parents, they are also a way for children to show off the confidence they’ve acquired, the bonds they have with their classmates and their tenacity, teamwork and hard work. It teaches them one of life’s most important lessons, that if you work hard, take a risk and give something your all, you will feel a real sense of achievement and success.

The Government has been clear, stressing that it is a “national priority that education should continue to operate as normally as possible”. Do the schools who have cancelled nativities or moved them online honestly think that the benefits of performing to an iPad will emulate a real life audience?

As the mother of two children who have thrived in the education system, in a way that I truly never anticipated, what has made them the dynamic and interesting people they are today is not verbal reasoning or algebra; it’s been the opportunity to perform when they were nervous, to work as a team and feel that collective achievement when they succeeded, be that on stage, in a debate or on a football pitch. As Covid threatens once again to deprive those least at risk of these experiences, we owe it to our children to think carefully about what exactly delivering an education really means.

Three important life lessons children learn from being in a nativity play

By Dr Jane Gilmour, consultant clinical psychologist and author of How To Have Incredible Conversations With Your Child

1. Going on stage is stressful – but it teaches good stress

A brief rush of stress (as opposed to chronic stress, which is toxic) is actually extra energy to meet the challenge in front of them, and changes their mindset in a really powerful way. A positive mindset changes the brain’s response to stressful situations and it learns from that experience in a more positive way. 

2. It shows you how to deal with difficult emotions

Being part of a play will have highs and lows, and your child may be confronted with complicated feelings (jealousy about the lead role, anxiety about forgetting lines) but talking about these difficult emotions is crucial to wellbeing and can allow deeper relationship bonds to form when they are managed with calm and empathy. 

3. Performing teaches children to take a risk 

These positive risks are a crucial learning point as children navigate life, particularly for the teenage years.