Science in the Last Week of Term: Are you a Scrooge or a Christmas fairy?

Becky Driver looks at two different approaches to the Christmas season.

‘What shall I do in my lessons this week?’: the question you ask yourself as you wind down towards Christmas. You are tired, flagging and just want to get to the holiday. You’ve nearly finished the longest, toughest term of the year, mocks and end of unit tests have been completed and marked (mostly).

Do you pretend Christmas isn’t really happening, or do you embrace the festive season? What will be the easiest? How can you make it through to the holiday?

Embracing the Festive Season

If you embrace the festive season what are you going to do during lessons? And how do you keep classes calm? What game is engaging for all students? What practical is fun enough but doesn’t make too much mess for the last day of term? Like every teacher, I have had classes of happy, excited children with their hearts set on the idea of bringing Christmas into the classroom, so I’ve ended up spending hours trying to find fun games, activities, or practicals. More often than not though, the result is that they are climbing the walls in a hectic hour that seems to never end! I hate going home with a headache.

Ignoring the Festive Season

Alternatively you could pretend the festive season isn’t happening all around you and ignore all of the ensuing complaints (‘We watched a film in English,’ ‘We played a game in French and won lots of sweets,’ ‘We had a party in maths’). At one school I taught at we did end of term exams on the last day and you can imagine how well that went down.

As a teacher I have tried both ways – embracing and ignoring the festive season. Both have their fair share of challenges. I don’t think there is an easy way to teach in the last week of term before Christmas; the best advice I can give is to just keep going: you’re nearly there. As an educator, a parent and a Twinkl employee I really support and thank all of those teachers out there that are thinking, planning and preparing for this week. So whichever option you go for, here are some of my favourite resources to help you through the last week: