Wokingham school put on nativity with live animals centre stage

In Christmas movies, real camels, goats and donkeys tell the story of how Joseph and Mary travelled to Bethlehem to give birth to the baby Jesus.

On school stages up and down the country, children or cardboard cut-outs of animals are used to play the roles.

Pupils at Holme Grange School, near Wokingham, however, had the Hollywood experience as they had real animals for their production of nativity.

Two donkeys, three camels, and a goat starred alongside the Year 6 pupils, in the school playground, in what they hope is one of the most immersive nativities the audience would ever see.

• School headteacher Claire Robinson had the idea of bringing the nativity to life.

This is the fifth time that the Wokingham school has hosted such an event, and they say by spacing out how often they do something like this, it helps to keep it magical for the children who come and take part.

Most of the animals were sourced locally - as school homes the goats within its grounds.

Headteacher, Claire Robinson said: "I went on the internet to try and find camels, so ever since we have tried to have them in every other year to just bring that sense of magic to it.

"It does allow us to do the nativity in a very very different way and the young children do get that sense to what it might have been like to travel, and the camels are quite majestic.

"Irrespective to what faith you are, it is not just about looking at the Christianity, because Christmas is about Christianity, it is also about hope, generosity, and kindess."

In the nativity, Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem to give birth to the baby Jesus.

Sophia, who played Mary said: "This is really important as we got to see what it was really like and that's a bit of history.

"That is really important for us to be able to feel what it was really like for them back then, with the young Mary and her husband Joseph being surprised by the Angel Gabriel with these animals around them."

For every Mary comes a Joseph, who takes his wife and donkey to Bethlehem, to find an inn to stay for the night.

However, in the story, they had to settle to share a stable with all the animals as the inns were full, something Year 6 pupil Joshua, who played Joseph, said he felt lucky to experience.

He said: "It has been really special because not a lot of schools get to experience having real camels, donkeys and goats at their actual nativity, when instead they might just have paper cut-outs.

"At our school, it is really special that we have real life animals because it just tells the story properly."

• ITV News spoke to children who watched the show about their thoughts on seeing the animals.

In the audience were children varying in age, from nursery to 16, and most of them say this is a nativity they would never forget.

Xander, who is 'six and three quarters,' was very excited to see the real animals.

He said: "It was excellent! It was hilarious. When somebody went down the slide to tell Mary, the donkey went crazy and run away!"

Year 2 pupil Jessica took part in her own nativity a few weeks ago, she said: "It was so cool. I just loved the real animals and the donkeys! It was really different to our usual nativity that we did a few weeks ago. I played a mother with four children!"

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