At Out of the Ark Music, we love nativities (we’ve published over 60 of them)! Every year, we love to see and hear about all the fantastic performances schools put on up and down the country. We feel really privileged to help schools reap the amazing benefits of this festive tradition. Also, this year you can make use of our exciting early-bird offer! Read on to find out more.
So, why should YOU do an Out of the Ark Music nativity this year? Let us tell you why…
- They’re great for pupil wellbeing and for learning life skills
Nativities are such a good opportunity for school communities to take pride in the communal effort they’ve put in. Singing, speaking and performing in front of an audience is something that children often first experience as part of the annual nativity. If this first experience is a positive one, then it can really be life-changing for them moving forward. The retelling of essentially the same nativity story through the years is a great way to link all the age-groups together and enable them to learn from one another: the younger children can be inspired by watching the older ones, and the older ones can enjoy supporting their younger counterparts.
Children seeing their grown-ups or friends in the audience with big smiles on their faces is a massive encouragement and can be a memory that sticks. Plus, the teamwork involved in putting on the production really helps build a sense of community spirit.
- You can be confident it’ll work
Did you know that our founders, Mark and Helen Johnson, wrote their first nativity in 1989? Ever since then our team have been writing, publishing and producing quality nativities for children and schools around the world.
In the UK alone we have over 18,000 schools as customers and throughout our 30+ years as a publisher, that’s hundreds of thousands of children and performances! We even have staff who performed our nativities as children themselves. Our team includes experienced songwriters, editors and teachers, which means that each brand-new nativity we publish comes with proven knowledge and expertise.
- You’ll get lots of supporting resources, so it’s (mostly) stress-free!
When you purchase one of our nativities, you’re not just purchasing songs and a script (although, of course you get those!), we also provide you with a whole host of supporting resources – we know teachers have a lot on their plates and we want to make it as easy as possible for you to put on your nativity!
All of our nativities come with backing tracks and vocal tracks sung by a children’s choir, so if you don’t happen to have a pianist in your school, you can simply play the tracks that suit your needs. Backing tracks are great for medium and large groups, whereas the vocal tracks can give a little boost to smaller or less confident groups.
If you purchase a package that includes a Words On Screen™ eSongbook, then you’ll have access to a simple and user-friendly way to display lyrics from our songbooks, musicals and nativities on any whiteboard, computer screen or interactive touchscreen.
We’ll also provide you with staging and costume ideas, a props and cast list, and some of our nativities also come with Makaton signing videos and advice for increasing or decreasing cast sizes. And that’s not all! Lots of our nativities also come with an editable script, as well as choreography ideas and craft videos. You can check exactly what’s included on the product page for each individual nativity.
- With our early-bird offer, you can get a FREE songbook with your nativity!
If you choose to buy one of our nativities this year, you can make use of our exciting early-bird offer. For a limited time only, we’re giving away a free copy of our best-selling autumn songbook Songs For Every Autumn Assembly when you purchase your nativity as an early birdie. You sort Christmas, we’ll sort autumn! Ts & Cs apply.
- There’s something for everyone!
Whether you’re looking for something traditional or modern, for a big cast or a small one, for a whole school or just your early-years classes, we’ve got something to suit you. We have over 60 nativities for you to choose from, plus Christmas musicals and pantomimes too, so there really is something for everyone!
