Funded by the Ragdoll Foundation.
This project combines exciting StoryGenerator performances from professional visiting artists, where children see and hear wonderful tales from around the world, with a focus on developing their own abilities as authors. The stories they create are brought to life as they are acted out by the whole class, and then reflected upon.
This process provides great motivation for the children to fulfil and surpass many National Curriculum requirements – particularly around listening, exploring ideas, language and vocabulary development, speech and communication, buildingin the ideas of others, narrative and role-play.
Read a blog post by Skylarker’s Pip Jones here.
As it is physical, dynamic and exciting, this process appeals especially to children who may be disengaged with literacy, helping them to develop their enthusiasm, interest and confidence in this area.
Over the course of the project, teachers will be given guidance and support so that they can run StoryPlayer sessions themselves, so bringing a buzz and sense of excitement to their literacy lessons.
Parents will also be given tools and inspiration to support their children’s literacy at home.
Each class will receive:
5 WORKSHOP SESSIONS WITH YOUR CLASS
StoryGenerator performance (stories from around the world brought to life through storytelling and puppetry)
Hands on – exploring story making
Storycircle where the children act their own and each other’s stories (first led by Pip but as the project goes on, incrementally led by the teacher) Beautifully designed Storykits for your class as a legacy of the project
3 1NSET SESSIONS
To give you the skills to run the StoryPlayers approach yourselves
1/ Theory and practice of the approach
2/ Mid-point review – specific support for you and your class
3/ Shared findings. Reflection on long term embedding of the work in your setting Ongoing mentoring throughout the project
1 NETWORKING SESSION
With teachers from other schools who are doing the project too Access to online resources and opportunity to be part of a longer-term community to support and inspire you.
1 PARENT ENGAGEMENT SESSION
To inspire and engage parents to support their children’s creative literacy at home
The School’s contribution to total residency cost = £300
What does the project ask of teachers?
- Your presence and engagement at all the sessions
(unless there are circumstances beyond your control)
- Willingness to be a research partner on the project, helping to work out how the approach can work best for you and your children
- Helping to evaluate the project through observations
- Willingness to scribe children’s stories in between sessions
- Willingness to lead the storyacting sessions by the end of the project (you will have step by step guidance on how to do this and it requires no athletic ability!)
Click here to find out more about Skylarker and their work.
