When the reindeer go missing from Christmas HQ just a week before the Big Day, the Elf Detective Agency is contacted to find out what happened and bring the reindeer back. What has happened to them, who investigates the case and what happens next will be told by students as they write their Christmas Detective stories.

We’ll briefly look at the features of a typical detective story (including suspects’ behaviour, planting clues for the reader, building tension and using a red herring) before students are introduced to the lead investigators of the Elf Detective Agency and choose who will be the detective in their own story. Then they'll be given witness statements by some of the staff and inhabitants of Christmas HQ. 

Using the details from these statements, students will plan and create a story that tells the reader how their detective worked out what happened and whether the reindeer are discovered in time, if Santa will have to find stand-ins, or if Christmas is cancelled.