Storytelling, Oracy and Literacy

The best things come in threes

My storytelling work in schools and nurseries is tailor made to support oracy and literacy as I combine storytelling with my expertise in communication. I offer bespoke storytelling that will meet your needs including class workshops, intervention groups, storytelling weeks, CPD sessions, storytime.

‘Storytelling will continue to be an important part of our school curriculum and we would like to thank Hannah for inspiring us and working alongside us.’

Head teacher Merton Abbey Primary School

Please do get in touch to discuss your storytelling needs.

Early Years

I tell stories to engage, entertain and involve the children. These carefully developed stories support the emergence of key communication skills, for example listening and turn taking through using toys and props and they cater for all levels of language acquisition. Confidence is developed through engaging in stories, whether its copying gestures and actions, call response, sharing ideas or even more.

'Storytelling is the only time he really comes out of himself all week.'

Nursery Nurse, Battersea

School Workshops

Storytelling workshops build communication skills, understanding of the narrative and children gain confidence in expressing and sharing ideas, all of which support oracy and literacy.

Working closely with teaching staff I tell a story to support class learning, for example, an adapted oral version of a class text, a story to support topic work. To build on this the workshops include opportunities to discuss the story and explore the story through retelling and acting it out.

Small group work running alongside class workshops support children who would benefit from pre learning, for example vocabulary, sequencing, building understanding of a narrative, prior to class workshops.

‘Writing and reading standards have been very high this year and I believe the weekly intervention of Hannah’s storytelling sessions has contributed to the standard of work produced by the pupils attending her sessions’

Year 1 Teacher, Wimbledon Park Primary School

‘You can be more imaginative in your writing because you’ve just acted it all out in your own words.’

Year 6 Pupil

Intervention Groups

These groups utilise storytelling to support children's communication skills, language development, confidence, narrative skills and wellbeing. In these small groups interventions are tailor made, reviewed and adapted to support the children’s needs drawing on my expertise in communication and storytelling repertoire. Stories are discussed, acted out, changed and developed incorporating the children’s ideas thus creating a story together.

‘I wasn’t listening and kept getting into trouble but now we have a chance to tell stories it's really helping me’ 

Y5 pupil

‘Small storytelling groups provide valuable opportunities for disadvantaged pupils to practise talking about and sharing their ideas before writing them down. As a result, disadvantaged pupils make rapid gains.’

Wimbledon Park Primary School Ofsted Report

Other school events

Whether it’s an assembly, enrichment week, a celebration of storytelling or any special event across the whole school I’ll tell stories that rise to the occasion

"Hannah, you were completely wonderful, the children were captivated!"

Jo Chandler, Acorn Book Club

"The children absolutely loved Hannah, the World Book Day Storyteller 

Paul Hooper, Head Teacher, Coopers Lane Primary School

Libraries Storytelling and Literacy

What better place to tell stories than a library?

I offer storytelling sessions for all ages and for all occasions. I’ve been found in libraries telling stories for Storytime, National Pic Nic Month, Word Book Day, National Storytelling Week and more. Here’s an example of my work:

To celebrate National Literacy Day I was commissioned by Waltham Forest Libraries to run a series of Literacy Workshops that catered to local families.The workshops provided an opportunity to experience storytelling, through hearing a fun and interactive story supported by a variety of craft and literacy activities. The oral story I told was a version of, 'Monkey See Monkey Do' and was adapted for each library, to work for all ages and abilities. I also included lots of the children’s ideas. We then made our books supported by book templates to meet everyone’s needs.

The children absolutely loved it. They came up with an array of ideas which I could feed into the story. It was brilliant to see the children’s delight as their ideas were used. They threw themselves into telling the story with me and were very proud to show me the books they made.

Parents, Grandparents and Carers talked about reading the children’s books at home and they asked when I would be back with more workshops.

Storytelling, Oracy and Literacy

During my ongoing residency at Merton Abbey Primary School, storytelling has gone from strength to strength. Each class receives weekly storytelling workshops with me to explore and support the class text through the oral telling and retelling of a story based on the text. Through this, the children explore and share their ideas to build their understanding ready for writing. 

For the workshops I develop oral stories to model key vocabulary, language structures and narrative styles, by collaboratively working with the class teacher and sharing ideas, approaches and expertise.

'Through bringing together older language forms, precise vocabulary choices and carefully constructed story structure, Hannah modelled building mood and atmosphere in her oral retelling. This couldn't have been clearer than in our last. The atmosphere of the story was so intense, that when Hannah finished telling the story, the children, who had been silent throughout, spontaneously burst into applause.'

Year 6 Teacher , Merton Abbey Primary School