Somerset stories at North Petherton Primary School
How can storytelling, drama, art and real life theatre experiences support pupils learning and attainment in literacy?
North Petherton Primary School in Bridgwater is one of a group of five Somerset schools involved in a Creative Partnerships Change School storytelling project that is having an effect not only on the pupils involved but on the practice of teachers across the schools.
The five schools in the ‘Compass Group’ (North Petherton Primary, North Newton, Elmwood Special School, Hamp Junior and Hamp Infants) wanted to use their Change School project to instil a ‘magical’ element into their literacy teaching through working with creative professionals including storytellers, artists and drama practitioners, raise standards in literacy and provide excellent levels of professional development for their staff.
The Compass Group also agreed they all wanted to link the project to their existing literacy provision as the schools involved had all undergone training in Talk for Writing, a programme developed by Pie Corbett, and had all committed to developing their literacy teaching and learning.
In the summer of 2010, each school researched and chose their own preferred storyteller depending on the stories their children would be studying, the media through which they wanted to explore them and the text types, and all pupils across the schools involved (with the exception of Elmwood Special School, which chose to target the project to a specific group of children in their school) worked with their storyteller on storytelling as an art and as inspiration for their own stories.
Following work with the storyteller, the pupils will work with a watercolour artists to illustrate their stories and create a polished, finished end product, something the schools involved were all keen the pupils came away from the project with. The project also involves a theatre trip, an experience North Pethertonheadteacher, Louise Chamberlain, was emphatic in her support of. "Many of our pupils lack real life experiences to write about," she said. "Some of the children will not have been taken to the theatre or to other cultural events. Some will not have left Bridgwater before."
North Petherton Primary School is well used to partnership working with other schools in the area, having been through a major integration project internally amalgamating the previously separate infant and primary schools, having been set up a QCA network across Somerset, and also through working with the Real Ideas Organisation as part of Sedgemoor Learning Alliance.
The school, which is a pilot school for Pie Corbett’s Talk for Writing, has an obvious focus on literacy,from the storymaps the children use in every classroom to the brightly coloured storyteller’s cloak on the back of one teacher’s chair and the commitment every teacher makes to reador tell a story to their class each day.
The storytelling project in the school’s mixed age Year 3 and 4 class linked with their geography topic on an Indian village, starting with a session with a professional storyteller on Hindu stories, in which the children acted out scenes from the stories, listened to and recounted narratives, made tableaux of scenes and meditated.
Class teacher, Jo, said: "It's a great starting point. We can always refer back to that session with the children and they will remember those stories, because of the way [the storyteller] delivered them. [The children] have been up, acting and doing the drama with the story."
"They are completely engaged, completely with her. She brings them to a modern day understanding of an ancient story."
This high impact starting session was used as a catalyst for learning not only in literacy but in other areas of the curriculum where links were found, such as geography, RE, music and art.
For class teacher Jo however, the benefit of working with a professional storyteller went deeper than engaging the children and the benefits they would gain from working with a professional storyteller, but it enabled her to reflect on different techniques she could use in her practice, and observing the children in her class working with another professional, and seeing how good the provision of learning could be.
