Situation:
As part of Community Champions funding we worked with Tower Hamlets Learning Communities Development Project to provide storytelling training for parents of young children at a nursery within the borough. This was to enhance the confidence of the mother’s who took part, as well as enabling them to tell stories to their young children.

Solution:
We contacted all the nurseries in the borough, and partnered with Old Church Nursery to deliver the project. It was decided that the staff and volunteers at the nursery could also benefit from storytelling training, so we provided 1 afternoon’s INSET for them on site. The parents took part in a course, attending for two hours, once a week, for six weeks. And to ensure the children of the nursery didn’t miss out, we also offered a morning of storytelling performance on the occasion of National Storytelling Day.

Results:
The INSET involved the staff in an energetic and intensive workshop, which explored ways of performing storytelling in the classroom and how to use it to enhance teaching and learning. This was also a great fun team-builder, bringing together both teachers and assistants to learn new techniques and upgrade their skills. Not all parents who took part in the 6 week course were able to attend each session, so we designed each lesson to stand alone to ensure everyone felt included at all times. The mothers were delighted with the skills they learnt, and put them into practice on the last day by performing to the classes in which they had children. This highly successful course ensured all parents who took part would be able to create and tell stories to their children, when stuck at a bus stop with no book to hand, at bed time or play time.