Once upon a time in Burnley...
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| storymaking calls for lively action.... |
A new project is slowly
uncurling its storytelling horns and peeping its beautiful face out of its
shell…(I like snails). Stories Alive! has placed 5 artists in 5 Nursery Schools (see below)
in and around Burnley in East Lancashire. Our teams have been challenged to develop sets of activities to help embed storytelling and storymaking in
Nursery practice, in families and in the children we are all working with
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| wordcloud: what are we doing, what do we remember? |
We began a couple of weeks
ago with an InSeT evening with 50 staff from across the Nurseries reminding
themselves of skills they've already learned and processes they already use.
Initially, this was a slightly daunting process when I saw how confident the
group were in their storymaking (what could we contribute?). Reassuring, too:
here are teams of people who remember previous training (a year or more ago
with Carol Graham from Storyspace), take new ideas on board and are ready to
take risks. Great! So we went on to make up new stories and build little books
to help hold our stories together
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| Pippa in action |
Then we all gathered at the
wonderful Burnley Youth Theatre for children and staff to meet their artists
and create their first stories together. All? Yes, ALL. There were buses
ferrying small figures from all over the place, converging on their slightly
anxious artists. Over two days some 300 children and assorted staff and parents
joined us at the theatre. And we all survived! And we didn't lose anyone (or
not that we've heard yet!). And it was fun!
Now, as the snowdrops prepare
to flower, our teams of teachers, children, artists and parents are ready to
flower too! Over the next few
weeks, workshops will explore ideas and develop activities. Our artists aren't
there to simply go in and deliver a storymaking workshop here or there. Our role
is indeed to bring our expertise but to find ways of sharing skills and
developing programmes that suit the individuals and communities of our
Nurseries
And every so often we'll all meet and share experiences, swap artists, try each other's activities and watch this old Toad worrying about whether he's booked enough coaches
As the project develops we'll
post moments here - for project members to enjoy and, hopefully, for my wider
blog-visitors to see what we're up to
ARTISTS
Hannah Stringer
Gordon MacLellan - Creeping Toad - me!
NURSERIES
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| and they all lived..... |
Stories Alive! is supported by Arts Council England
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