This is a quote from a very pleased, yet very surprised, parent from my school.

We have a daily soft start, which gives the parents an opportunity to interact with the children in the classroom, but also with myself. Recently, I’ve had an increase in the parents coming in to tell me about the “amazing” stories their children have been creating at home!

I can definitively say this is a result of Tales Toolkit.

As a Teach First Leadership and Development Programme Participant, I often heard teachers discussing Tales Toolkit (winner of the Teach First Innovation Award) and was always very interested, but as with lots of school initiatives, seeing is often believing! So thank goodness this academic year my school invested into the scheme.

As a Reception year group, we started implementing it into our planning by Christmas. It was the perfect tool for using with my class ‘Elf on the Shelf’ (the character), who found himself in many different scenarios (the setting and often the problem) and who needed my children to think of different ways to help him (the solution).

From here the creativity in the classroom, supported by these four very simple, yet effective symbols, spiralled.

After Christmas our resident Elf sadly had to return home and with a few (unexpected!) tears the children said goodbye, but what he had left the class, through the introduction of Tales Toolkit was invaluable.
Despite Christmas being three months ago (believe it or not), I still have an area in my classroom dedicated to Tales Toolkit, which is accessed independently by a variety of children on a daily basis.

The children use Tales Toolkit to be, in their own words, “authors”.

And who knew, if you can tell your own story, you will want to draw and try to write it – even if you are a four-year-old boy with no interest in writing! I can’t wait to continue exploring the different ways of using Tales Toolkit and to share my journey with you all.

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