Schools

Contact Sophie:

Tel: 01332 840007 email:robandsophie@hotmail.com

"Thank you very much for coming to school today. I wanted to email and say how much we all enjoyed it. I've had nothing but positive comments from staff and the children! Thanks again and hope to work with you in the future!"

Tracey Lawrence, Teacher, The Pastures Primary School, Leics.

Storytelling is a wonderful medium for learning. We all tell stories everyday - in schools, work, home, the street corner, the school gate, the news on TV ... an ability to comminicate clearly and effectively will carry a child through school, the playground, home life, job interviews and career. So the development of confidence and oral, listening and communication skills are key life skills.

Then there is Creativity. How do you tap into children's creativity, excite their interest, curiosity, fire the imagination, make connections, teach the factual stuff but with a twist that is memorable, developing concentration, memory retention and recall. How do you teach empathy, paint the bigger picture, cross the curricular boundaries?

Enter storytelling. It's the perfect way to learn all this in such an entertaining format without even realising! You don't need to be academically gifted or brilliant at writing and spelling either - it suits all ability levels. It's about listening, getting caught up in the story, speaking, finding the words to express not only the tale itself but the emotions of the characters, the situations. Standing up and having a go, voice, volume, being heard - confidence!

"I wish I had known half of what I have learnt from storytelling when I was at school and later in my 20's..."

Sophie's workshops and performances are carefully planned with all this in mind. To promote creative thinking, the enjoyment of stories, concentration and memory. To build confidence, listening, communication and comprehension skills. To develop vocabulary and present reading, writing and poetry in a new, fun light.

Performances

Sophie has a range of traditional folk tales, myths and legends perfect for performing to students at all stages. With younger ones, she brings face masks, hand puppets and a bright, colourful dragon to help engage and interact with the children. For older students, the stories chosen are more mature. Often she starts with simpler, lively stories then builds up to a longer more thoughtful one, to develop concentration and understanding.

"I am a great believer in not dumbing down the language - even with little ones. Young children have an enormous capacity to soak up language - they may not understand every word, but with rhythm, repetition, context and a thirst to know what happens next, they pick it up anyway, without realising. If they don't hear longer and more interesting words, they won't learn them and play with them."

The same is true of "gifted and talented" and less able children. Evocative words, that sound and feel different, lyrical stories that ebb and flow, exciting, dramatic, fun and silly - all the tricks of the trade to engage, and educate through the experience of a storytelling performance.

Workshops

Often workshops start with an initial performance, followed by exercises and techniques to introduce storytelling. How to remember the story, visualisation techniques, memory jogs, mind maps. Finding great words and phrases, creating memorable characters and exciting plots, exploring new ways to express oneself. Performance techniques, using voice, gesture, space, responding to the audience, watching, listening. Group, individual and shared retelling of a story or story section, might lead to a final end of day shared celebration of stories.

As with any workshop, the size of group and length of time available shapes the session. With oral storytelling there is no pressure to be academically brilliant at writing. So the emphasis is on listening, thinking, creating and performing and getting involved. Workshops work well outdoors too, maybe a local park or country location.


Some Examples of Projects with Schools

Knights and Castles Day - staff and parents set up a gazebo in the sports hall, decorated by the children with painted shields, coats of arms, bright coloured fabrics and fairy lights - our base for two days of stories and fun designed to develop language and concentration span, in a school with a high proportion of children for whom English was their second language.

World Book Week - stories and poems to enthuse a love of books, to inspire reading and writing through storytelling linked exercises.

St George's Day - 23rd April - the story of St George and the Dragon presented with other dragon tales - out came my favourite dragon, and tales of high adventure, fiercesome creatures, brave princesses and canny young men.

Arts Week - a secondary school's week of exploration of the dramatic arts, with taster storytelling performances and workshops designed to engage and encourage vocal confidence.

Bastille Day - July 14th - a specially commissioned 45 minute performance. The brief was to develop a piece that tells the story of Bastille Day in a manner accessible to all the year groups of a primary school. The response was a presentation of the story of Bastille Day, interweaving three French folk tales from the 18th century that illustrate the socio-economic background to the French Revolution. Key features of the storming of the Bastille were retold as a wrap around story and the folk tales used to explain the starvation, poverty and frustration of the peasants, the inequalities of the "Three Estates" and the concept of revolution (without the need to give the more gruesome aspects of the violence of that time). (Note parts of this performance are in simple French, with translation following.)

Note - this performance is available for booking for other schools - suitable for all year groups, and great for a French Week, or History themes.

Storytelling Celebrations - a day of stories to introduce and celebrate the traditional art of storytelling.

Gifted and Talented Literacy Summer School - a day of experiential learning in Sherwood Forest, listening to stories amongst the trees, learning a favourite story from the performance, and exploring language and description.

"Very engaging - the boys described your stories as "awesome!" and I have never seen that group so intent on listening, they were hanging on to every word!"

"The Foundation Class teacher still speaks about your visit and how successful it was."

Anne Wright, Teacher, Dry Sandford Primary School, Oxfordshire.