Story writing workshops with Branston Church of England Infant Academy

In November 2021 we held story writing workshops with Branston Church of England Infant Academy. Most of our work takes place in workshops held over 3 days with school years 4 – 6, but here we piloted work with years 1 and 2 and delivered it in 3 hours workshops held over 2 days each for 3 classes.

All the children thought about the stories they enjoyed and talked about different genres of story – horror, comedy etc and decided what sort of a story they wanted to create as a class. They came up with ideas for characters and the narrative and voted on the ideas to decide what would go into the stories. As part of the process, they invented dialogue and decided how their characters would feel during their adventures.

Sensory equipment was used to create atmosphere in the classroom and led to lots of description.

Feedback from both the children and the teachers was very positive. Almost all the children responded well to the sensory equipment and enjoyed having it in their classrooms and all of the older ones felt they had become better at writing stories (this wasn’t a question we asked of the very young ones).

Because of their age, they spent time during each part of the workshops illustrating their stories.

After the workshops our editing and printing Elves got to work, turning the children’s stories into a book and they were each given a copy.

“Feedback from the books has been lovely. The children were so proud to receive their published book. They spent time in class reading their stories and all rushed out at the end of the day to show their parents.”

“The teachers were really pleased with the outcome of the book and the entire process was really smooth. They enjoyed the experience in school and how easy the whole process was. Noel (and the team) were encouraging of the children and together they produced some interesting stories. We feel really privileged to have had this experience and would wholeheartedly recommend to other schools”.

Our thanks to Mrs Lianne Cook, Head Teacher for the feedback and permission to use the photographs taken during the workshop.