From 2012 to 2014, Spelthorne Consortium of schools in Shepperton chose to support and educate their children with a range of June's storytelling opportunities........
RAISING STANDARDS IN WRITING
Story Performance:
A series of storytelling performances for young children.
This would be a series of sessions that would be good
stories which work well with their age group. The best
stories are the ones that deal with important human
issues. The teachers can follow up the sessions however
they like. For nursery and reception simply listening to
stories is a great experience to support language
and literacy.
“The children’s language develops more quickly from the regular story and song sessions – much more so than they do with specialist withdrawal groups.”
(Carole, nursery teacher at Ashburnham School, Kensington and Chelsea)
“The children just listened to this story and I got the best piece of writing that I got out of them for this project. In fact it was the best piece of writing that I got all year.”
(Y3 teacher from St James School, Petts Wood after ‘Children as Storytellers’ Project)
'June is a magician. Children who cannot engage or are frustrated and angry seem to respond to the stories and games.'
(Vicky, Y5 teacher and Literacy coordinator across KS1 and 2)
Storyfair:
The older children listen to stories from me, rehearse them and retell them for younger ones.
It has all the elements of talking, listening and retelling a story in it. If KS2 children start their
term’s work with this workshop, they remember the sense of what an audience needs. All
further story work has clear practical context for them and this sense of audience will also
influence their writing.
Saxon Primary School, Shepperton intend to take on a year’s residency having seen this day in action.
“We’ve all been on courses about the importance of pace and timing, but you seem to have an intuitive sense of what the children need at any particular time in order to gain and to hold their attention.”
Andy Conde (Y5 teacher at Woodford Green School)
Story session combined with workshop activities:
Early in the term, we focus on more listening, and build up on more and more story skills
games.
A typical session would involve a warm up game, a story, some verbal fluency games to
improve use of vocabulary, some drama games to deepen experience of the content of the
story, or some tasks which look at the structure of the narrative.
Stories to support the curriculum:
If a class is looking at a particular topic (ancient greeks, water etc) it may be possible to use
stories in the language project to fit in and support these topics.
Storymaking:
Drama based work that leads to creation of a new class story. The children provide the
elements of the story, but I would provide the structure of the story through a process of
reflection, dramatic action and discussion with the class.
Personal Storytelling
I also do workshops on personal storytelling that might be appropriate at secondary level, but
I would only suggest it if the students had done a term on telling traditional stories to younger
children. (see ‘storyfair’)