Situation:
Cambridge Education @ Islington run an annual conference aimed at providing junior and primary schools teachers with additional tools with which to bring reading and writing to life within the classroom. They were looking to add to their list of authors and poets, who delivered both talks and workshops, by offering a masterclass in storytelling.

Solution:
We were asked to create and deliver 2 x 90-minute workshops to help teachers working with children from nursery through to year six to become more confident, fluent and creative storytellers. Within our workshop, we taught participants a process which enabled them to each read a traditional folktale and make it their own. Through a series of exercises they each discovered their own voice and ability as storytellers, and finished the session with note-free performances.

Results:
The participants were delighted to find they were able to learn, personalise and tell a story in such a short period of time. In the discussion at the end, they shared ways in which they would be able to translate and apply the techniques within their work, not only to improve their communication, but also to improve that of their pupils. Cambridge @ Islington were so pleased with the feedback they received regarding our sessions, we were invited back for the following year’s conference, to teach a further masterclass on creating group stories.