Anna Wells
Anna has an MA in Applied Linguistics and came into teaching via Schools Direct in 2013. She currently works at a prep school in Greater London teaching English and has previously been an Assistant Head, focusing on assessment. She is a self-confessed football nerd and…
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What can you do to make National Storytelling Week a success in your school?
Five ideas for making National Storytelling Week a success in your school, to kickstart great habits in reading and writing!
National Storytelling Week kicks off on the 30th of January – this is a fantastic opportunity to refresh and remind your students of the importance of storytelling! As teachers, we can often find it hard to fit in reading aloud and ‘story time’ in an already packed timetable, yet we all know the benefits it can have. National Storytelling Week gives us a great excuse to shine the spotlight on verbal and written stories. Here are five ideas to help you plan an amazing seven days of stories!
1. Go out into the community
National Storytelling Week is a fantastic opportunity to go and visit your local community, whether it be a care home, hospital, nursery or community centre. Your class or English group could create a story and perform it in front of an audience, spreading joy as well as free publicity for your school.
2. Create a writing stimulus for children
Children usually produce their best writing when it is about something they have seen or experienced. Why not encourage them by putting a mysterious object in the playground or having a surprise visitor enter your classroom? Children can start writing as soon as the experience is over, producing great pieces of work that include rich detail and description.
3. Classroom games
Writing a story should not have to be a drawn-out experience – there are plenty of games that encourage children to get their creative juices flowing! For example, children write the beginning of a story on a piece of paper, fold it up and then pass it to someone else, who writes the next part. The best bit is reading all the sentences aloud at the end! Games like this work well as a warm-up, to encourage reluctant writers to put pen to paper.
4. Use the resources already available
There is no need to reinvent the wheel when so many resources are already available online. A quick google for ‘National Storytelling Week’ will bring up lots of reputable websites with plenty of ideas to get you started. There are also events going on throughout the week, including live storytelling by authors, which could make for a great assembly idea!
5. Audit your school community
National Storytelling Week comes before World Book Day and is a good opportunity to see what children are reading at home and the availability of books amongst your students. This may prompt you to set up a book fair or book swap in time for March. It can also give you information on favourite authors, who you could then contact on social media to see if they will give your school a shout-out!
Why not try some of these ideas to help promote National Storytelling Week in your school?
