Questions by Mark Ricketts from St. Luke's school in Portsmouth. Kudos to Mark's Year 7 class who came up with the distractors.

This quiz is based on the (disputed) idea that the song is a catechism designed to teach the core tenets of the Catholic faith. A bit of web research will overwhelm you with conflicting versions of the tenets; I think this article is well-written and reasonably accessible.

Lesson plan

1. Start the lesson with the song itself. Best if you can get the kids singing it, but failing that here's an MP3. Remember that some schools block MP3s in case they contain unauthorised education, so download it in advance!
2. Introduce the idea that the carol can be seen as a catechism written in coded, metaphoric language. Most kids love codes, so there should be plenty of examples from their current subculture that you can draw on to introduce the concepts.
   
3. Set Quiz 1, allowing just one attempt each instead of the default 2. Tell the students this is the rehearsal, and that it is the Quiz 2 marks you will record/award prizes for. Quiz 1 puts all the feedback to the end. Advise students not to close the quiz when finished, becaue they will need the feedback. Whilst students are working, project the Analysis Whiteboard.
   
4. Use the whiteboard to briefly discuss the least-understood questions. Use this as an opportunity to point them toward good research sources and to bring out some peer support. Resist the temptation to start teaching! 5 minutes.
   
5. Allow students to work together in pairs to review their feedback, discuss and research. Timing for this really depends on the concentration span of the students, because the research opportunities are enormous.
6. Set Quiz 2. Note that you should not set this in advance. It is important to prevent students from starting it before they have completed their research. This puts the feedback after each question, which makes for better reinforcement. If you want to promote stronger competition at this point, project the Quiz Whiteboard. Use this with caution, as it can demoralise the low attainers.
7. Hand out praise and prizes!

The extension task takes things one step further, and invites students to investigate the claims and counterclaims about catechism.