Secret Storyteller

Hey,

This post is about the power of ‘Secret storyteller’ which is a programme at Greenways Primary Academy Milton Primary School where each week, a parent comes in and reads a story to the kids but obviously the kids don’t know who, This talk was done by Melissa Mifllin who started it and has a vision of where it will go.

Before I talk about the programme itself I am going to share a quote that was used in this talk, which was from The Guardian, an article in 2010, Pie Corbett Said:

“Children who are told stories are the ones who first form abstract concepts across the curriculum – in other words, being read to makes you brainy …

The best writers in the class are always those who are avid readers and those who are read to …

It may be parents have lost faith in this idea (reading to their children), but education is a way out of poverty.”

Parents are not reading at home to their kids as in the past maybe due to technology or being busy, and this programme is a way of getting parents into the school and they found through this project more and more parents were coming in, even dad’s which helped with the age gap of the reading ability between genders. Through this project, they found that children were going home and asking their parents to come in and be a secret storyteller and that even one parent took the afternoon off work to come in and read a story to the kids. “My child is always asking me if I can be the Secret storyteller.”

Melissa spoke about how she found it important to have both the children’s and parent voice as well as the teachers’ so a board was created where thoughts and pictures of the story and event were placed there. This meant parents and visitors of the school could come in and see what happens in the storytelling time. It’s also went into the newsletter that led to the community getting involved. For example they had a priest come in and started telling Bible stories. This project involves everyone: Parents, children, teachers, community and church. It even links into their home life. For Example when a parent came in and read ‘Tiger came for tea’ and there was a section where the book spoke about what the tiger had the drink and the children started to talk about how their dad’s drunk that at home.

The impact of this has been great. There has been an increase of 24% between the age gap due to this programme and I have already spoken about how it has effected the community, but I feel that after hearing Melissa’s talk that it has brought the community together more.

The next step is to introduce it to higher levels where they would have a class book and a parent would come in and read a chapter from that book. Another step that they are thinking of to do next is to look at doing different cultures.

In this talk a quote from Sir David Carter was handed out which I think is inspiring so I felt like sharing it:

“Schools should look for guidance from teachers in other institutions that have been in special measures. I think there is as much, possibly even more, to learn from teachers who have gone from special measures to good as there is form the ones that have gone from good to outstanding. Also, outstanding schools can learn from schools that have been in special measures. Yet at the moment the badges in our system don’t reflect that. The system that we live in, makes an assumption that only good or outstanding schools are helpful schools.”

This quote walking about that not only good and outstanding schools can be helpful makes me think of in a classroom and how you have so many different kids and some of them may have a problem and could be considered special. They may feel that they are not good enough and due to being different their work isn’t outstanding but that doesn’t mean it can’t be helpful for both them and others. Reading this quote and how it talks about learning from other teachers it makes me think that this is what the Educations Show is all about, but also what schools are about as it is not just a place for the children to learn but also the adults. There is something to think about.

Learningvillage.org.uk

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Thanks for reading

Amy x