December 2025

Delivered by: Kateryna Polyakova

Key features: community involvement; culture studies; diversity; inclusion; creativity; arts and crafts; Multisensory learning.

It was a real joy to have Mrs. Polyakova lead a workshop on the Christmas traditions of her country. The great love that she has for the subject filled the room. We learnt about how Christian and pre-Christian pagan traditions mixed together to make the visually stunning Christmas practices we see today. We learnt about the dancing goat and heard the magnificent Bells carol. She told us stories and showed us colourful photographs or Christmas fairytales, children carolling, and Ukrainian Christmas foods. We weren’t left looking at them though. Mrs Polyakova brought the most delicious traditional Christmas Uzvar and Kutya for pupils and teachers to taste. She won everyone’s heart with that! She also showed us how to make star crafts that are traditional used to lead a group of carolling children.

We didn’t let her leave after that though. Asking her question after question we learnt about how Christmas was banned in Ukraine during the Communist era, and how grandmothers discretely passed knowledge to their grandchildren. We learnt with what processes the Ukrainian people re-discovered and re-constructed many of their traditions which were supressed and forgotten during the communist bans.