SCHOOLS across the county have been harnessing the power of technology to bring their Christmas plays to life this year.

Robert Ferguson Primary School in Carlisle was one of these schools - using green screen technology to produce a play that their families could enjoy from the safety of their own homes.

Graham Frost, headteacher at Robert Ferguson School, said the nativity holds a prominent position in the festive calendar – no matter how it is performed.

He said: "It is often cited by parents as being single most important harbinger of Christmas – to see children depicting a very familiar story and the remarkable thing about it is, no matter how many versions of it we do, every one is distinctive in some way and memorable in its own way.

"It is very important for us to ensure that the children had the opportunity [to do the nativity], but also with parents and grandparents in mind."

The performance, which was shot over a couple of weeks and made available to parents in mid December, gave the pupils a valuable opportunity to work with film-making technology – something Mr Frost hopes can inspire the children.

"For these children, it is the first time that they have been filmed in this way and it was lovely seeing their reaction when they were shown the footage super-imposed on to other backgrounds.

"It was delightful to hear one of the angels remarking, ‘we weren’t really dancing on clouds’."

"The technology is so widely available. People can even do these tricks with a smart phone or an iPad these days, but it is important for children to not only be able to understand the way that modern storytelling is done using computers, but also open up the possibility of them using that same storytelling technique themselves."

A longer version of the play was made exclusively available to parents, but a shorter version was made available on the Robert Ferguson website.

Mr Frost said the reaction from parents was "overwhelmingly positive" and that there were "many comments from parents who really appreciated it."

On the further benefits of using the green screen instead of more conventional methods, Mr Frost added: "It also gives you more creative options and it means that you are able to do more than one take of a scene if needed.

"As it happened, the children were so spontaneous that it didn’t take long to film at all."