Kirk O’Shotts Primary School was visited by storyteller,  Gerry Durkin on Monday 30 April who ran separate staff and parent workshops. Both workshops received positive feedback. Gerry gave a number of useful pointers for developing storytelling for children of all ages. A few of these will be listed below, underneath the following picture gallery:

Tips for storytelling:

• storytelling is particularly beneficial for ‘hard to reach’ children and those that are visual learners
• you may use books as a visual stimulus, but adapt the story or make up your own
• children love to join in, so choose stories with lots of repetition
• settle children into a storytelling session with a familiar song, rhyme or piece of music that they can join in with
• be imaginative when choosing your storytelling environment, try to make it different from the norm if possible, i.e. outside, multi-purpose room, etc.
• use different pace and noise level of stories to energise and then calm children down again
• sourcing stories can be done via Google, going to hear another storyteller, your own experiences, adapting existing stories
• bring in a social or behavioural aspect to your stories to provoke meaningful discussion at the end of the story
• don’t over-use props as they may just distract from the story… allow pupils to use their imagination and create pictures and images in their minds
• prepare your stories in advance so that you can tell them confidently to your children
• relax and enjoy the experience