In-school and Online Sessions

With our Story Suitcase sessions, students encounter new story worlds and develop creative and critical thinking through imaginative play. With our Pumpkin experience, a mysterious tent arrives in your school field and classes enter a Middle-Earth themed world to be whisked away with stories of dragons. With our in-school and online storytelling sessions, students are empowered through oracy to become creative and articulate thinkers, discovering new stories and creating their own.

"I actually could not believe what was happening. X has been elective mute since returning from lockdown; I have not heard her speak since September, and it's now May. Not only did she volunteer to speak, she was confident and hilarious and the class were supportive of her and cheered as they couldn't believe it either. It is astounding.' - In-school session, primary school in High Wycombe, 2022

Story Suitcase Experience

For Early Years to Year 6

A Story Museum Story Leader visits your school for a day, bearing a mysterious battered suitcase that has travelled to many mystical story lands! The Story Suitcase contains a mesmerising selection of multisensory souvenirs from a themed story world (see options below) and is brought to life by a performance and participative role play session.

The experience includes:

• A dedicated Story Leader who will tell a mesmerising story and facilitate one-hour participative story making sessions
• A textile backdrop setting, hand-stitched by textile artist, Ally Baker
• The intriguing Story Suitcase containing multisensory objects to discover and explore.
• Pre and post session resources for the teachers to keep, including activity and lesson plan ideas designed to evoke creative responses and emotional connections to the story, seed empathy with the characters, and pique curiosity about what will happen next.

Choose from the following Suitcase options:

• Amazon Rainforest - explore the Rainforest through the traditional oral story, 'The Tree of Life'. Perfect for studying alongside climate change, the environment, kindness and sharing or texts such as Journey to the River Sea by Eve Ibbotsen or The Explorer by Katherine Rundell.
• Narnia - step through the wardrobe and immerse your class in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C S Lewis with exciting sights and smells.
  
• Grimms' Tales - for your KS1 folk tales programme of study, take a journey into four classic tales collected by the Brothers Grimm, including: Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, The Musicians of Bremen, The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids. Also for KS2 and KS3, alongside the study of satire with stories such as Shrek, Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes and Joseph Coelho's Fairy Tales Gone Bad series.
  
• Anansi the Spider Suitcase - for your KS1 folk tales programme of study, discover four stories about Anansi the trickster spider which originated in Ghana and travelled to the Caribbean. Great for teaching themes of resilience. Also for older children studying Windrush stories such as Benjamin Zephaniah's Windrush Child, Floella Benjamin's Coming to England or Catherine Johnson's Freedom.

Length of session: One hour, to a maximum of four sessions per day
Timing: In-school sessions can take place between 09:30 and 15:00
Cost: £475+VAT per day + travel expenses. No travel expenses for schools in Oxfordshire.
Note: The experience requires a space of 2m². We will need a dedicated space for the day rather than rotating classrooms.
We offer in-school sessions to schools in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire. We do not charge travel expenses for schools situated in Oxfordshire.

The Pumpkin Experience

For Early Years to Key Stage 3

Hire our Pumpkin and meet our Story Leaders for an alternative experience with your class. The Pumpkin is a custom-made bell tent which can be installed on a grass space within your school grounds where it will transform into a world of dragon stories. Perfect for a school fete or launch of a new experience. Why not join with another school?

The Pumpkin is available for booking between April and September and must be booked for a minimum of three days and needs a space of 10m². For full details, download the Information Pack below.

Cost:
Three days (up to 15 hours delivery): £1290+VAT
Four days (up to 20 hours of delivery): £1590+VAT

In-School Storytelling

For Early Years to Year 6

The Story Leader visits your school for a full day. The Story Leader tells traditional oral stories from around the world and uses these as stimulus for students to create stories of their own, through collaboration and drama-based activities.

You can set the agenda for the day depending on your school's timetable and the number of classes you wish to involve. For example, the Story Leader could spend two hours with one class in which students develop a story together in detail or they could rotate classes with quickfire 20-minute story sessions. For EYFS we recommend sessions are no longer than 15 minutes.

We can offer in-school sessions to schools situated in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire.

Storytelling Sessions

Choose from: Dreamers, Healers, Tricksters and Shapeshifters, all of which can be differentiated from EYFS to Year 6:

• Dreamers: Stories for wellbeing, of wishes and dreams, including a turtle who wants to fly and a monkey who yearns for honey.
• Healers: Stories for wellbeing, starring various Wise Ones who encourage hapless characters to see happiness and luck right in front of them. Stories will explore the five ways to wellbeing (connect, take notice, stay active, keep learning, give).
• Tricksters: Stories for critical thinking. Devise puzzles, learn how to trick a dragon or overcome a crocodile.
• Shapeshifters: Stories for critical thinking. Meet some shape-shifting characters, and find out how animals came to be, why koalas love climbing trees and why frogs have no tails.

Timing: In-school sessions can take place between 09:30 and 15:00
Cost: Full day: £420+VAT+Travel
Note: We offer in-school sessions to schools in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire. We do not charge travel expenses for schools situated in Oxfordshire.

"It has built their confidence to lead and take part in storytelling. It has shown them what great storytelling looks like. I have learnt some good tips on how to engage and involve children in an oral story - I will use this in assemblies." – Teacher, in-school session, May 2021

Online sessions

For Early Years to Year 6

The storyteller tells two stories at the beginning of the day and sets a story-making task with accompanying resources. They then meet the class again - at the end of the lesson/day/week - to hear the students’ creations and tell a final story.

Choose from Dreamers, Healers, Tricksters and Shapeshifters, as described above, or request a specific theme relevant to your class.

All sessions can be adapted for Year 1 through to Year 6. We can meet up to four classes a day. For EYFS we recommend 15-20 minute sessions with no second sessions - these can be added to the costs below as complimentary sessions.

Cost:
One class (30-minute story launch storytelling session, resources, and second 30-minute storytelling session): £95+VAT
Two classes (2 x the above): £120+VAT
Three classes (3x the above): £135+VAT
Four classes (4x the above): £145+VAT

“Each teacher said how engaged their children were with your storytelling – some were hanging off your every word! Your use of props inspired some children to incorporate them into their stories. There was great discussion around the characters and what they might be up to, particularly the ones around how animals came to have certain characteristics. We couldn’t find anything to improve on!” – Teacher, Zoom storytelling session, March 2021

Booking a visit, CPD or in-school session to The Story Museum? Why not extend your provision and embed your school with an ethos of learning through stories and creative play, and enable your students and teachers to flourish under the transformative benefits on literacy, creativity and wellbeing.

With an Epic Adventure, you will be able to give the whole school some Story Museum magic, through an in-school session, Teacher CPD in Oral Storytelling for the staff, and a trip for two lucky classes. Not only this, we will curate a hand-picked selection of traditional oral stories, along with lesson plans, on a topic of your choice. You will also be given a free family ticket to The Story Museum – perfect for a school fete raffle or competition prize!

With an Epic Adventure, schools will have:

• Two Day of Delight trips to The Story Museum
• One in-school session of your choice
• One Teacher Twilight CPD in Oral Storytelling for your staff cohort
• A curated Story Resource Pack around a topic of your choice
• One free family ticket to The Story Museum for up to six people - perfect for your school fete
  

All yours for just £1,200+VAT!

For more details, see the download below.