Comenius Regio Partnership Project

Oral Storytelling

The Grove Primary School, Campkin Road, Cambridge,Cambridgeshire, CB4 2ND, UK

Working with:

Presentation by: Miss Laura-Jayne Hare On: Monday 13th January 2014

The Ownership and Narrative TestsNarrative test 1:

The List•The Chichi Festival is held in China around September•Chichi is sometimes called the Magpie Festival•Chichi celebrates the love of Princess Zinu and a farmer called Nulang•Zinu and Nulang are constellations – pictures made by joining up patterns of stars in the night sky•Between Zinu and Nulang is a long streak of stars, which some astronomers call "the Milky Way"•You can sometimes see another star between Zinu and Nulang, which the Chinese call "the Bridge"•At Chinese weddings, the new husband and wife make special prayers to Zinu and Nulang to have a happy marriage

The Questions•Which country celebrates the Chichi Festival?•When is the Chichi Festival?•What type of bird is important at Chichi?•Who was Zinu?•What was the job of Nulang?•Where can you see Nulang and Zinu today?•Name something that you can always see between Nulang and Zinu.•Name something that you can sometimes see between Nulang and the Zinu.•Who likes to pray to Nulang and the Zinu?

The ResultsAverage score 5.8 out of 9

The Ownership and Narrative TestsNarrative test 2:

The Story Of The Chichi Festival

The Questions•Which country celebrates the Chichi Festival?•When is the Chichi Festival?•What type of bird is important at Chichi?•Who was Zinu?•What was the job of Nulang?•Where can you see Nulang and Zinu today?•Name something that you can always see between Nulang and Zinu.•Name something that you can sometimes see between Nulang and the Zinu.•Who likes to pray to Nulang and the Zinu?

The ResultsAverage score 8 out of 9

The Ownership and Narrative Tests

Ownership test 1:

The Observations

The Pupil Voice

The Results

Initially the children set off to this task with determination and enthusiasm. We have done a lot of work on being a ‘self-starter’ and a ’positive learner’ so far this year. Looking more closely the pupils were generally using a lot of time to write the date in their books very carefully! The most able and most resilient children in the class set about writing and could have written for longer than the 40 minutes I gave them. One boy – ‘Pupil A’, sat thinking for a while and then walked over to me, “Can I include what I already knew about Charles Dickens?” To which I replied,“You need to write what you learnt from the documentary.”“Oh, okay.” He responded and with his head held low, he slowly walked back to his seat. What does this tell us about empowering children? Celebrating their individuality through their work?

Generally:Children struggled to apply their basic skills during the task particularly their understanding of punctuation. More able children could use their skills to bridge between the gaps in their knowledge/ memory of the documentary.Less able children tended to write about one point they remembered in detail or one point from the start and one from the end of the documentary. Very few children enjoyed the task and most felt that they were unable to be successful before they had even began .

The Ownership and Narrative Tests

Ownership test 2:

The Observations

The Results

For this task I chose to focus my observations on ‘Pupil A’. He Struggled during ownership task 1 and struggles with writing generally. He is a child with a statement who we are working very hard with trying to equip him with more skills to be an independent learner. H e has made very little progress in writing since Key Stage 1. Once the pupils were clear on the Learning objective: to explore using curiosity , and had been guided through both an example of what to do and a set of success criteria on how to achieve the learning goal; they set off with energy and enthusiasm.Pupil A chose to investigate a Victorian shaving brush. He was able to ask for adult help and also to use non-fiction texts to research the artefact. He set to work independently and worked through until the time was up. During this time he wrote independently and selected the resources he needed to help him independently.

The pupil has written the following:

‘I was used for brushing mens faces. You also use a sharp blade to get the cream of your faces.’

He has independently chosen to write in the 1st person, from the perspective of the shaving brush and has decided to present his writing in the shape of the object he explored. He has also used clear sentences and full stops as well as using ‘also’; a higher level connective/conjunction than he would usually chose.

Becoming Oral StorytellersThe Stimulus

Three days prior to the session, the class were told they would watch The Snowman, an animation ( with no speaking or narration) by Raymond Briggs as a treat for hard work over the week. Truthfully, I was ensuring that all children in the class including EAL pupils were able to access the storytelling session I had planned.

• To create an atmosphere productive to storytelling. • To create a challenge all children feel both motivated and inspired by• To hand over the ownership entirely to the children• To set a task that can be differentiated by the outcome.

The Aims

Becoming Oral StorytellersThe Learning Objective

• To create the end of a story

• To tell the story from your head• To use eye contact to keep the attention of your audience• To use your hands and body to create a story space to help your audience imagineAs an extension :• To begin to ask your audience for their ideas when telling your story

The Success Criteria

The Oral Story Starter

Becoming Oral StorytellersSetting the Scene

Being a Storyteller for The First Time

• Beginning to use eye contact. Initially, the pupil is fixing this only on the class teacher.

I choose 8 children for the focus group. I based my choices on a cross section of writing abilities; roughly two top, two middle and two bottom ability writers, but also included two children who have particular difficulties with writing and historically have made little to no progress since Key Stage 1.

• Beginning to use story space. Initially, the pupil is doing this through movement. She does not repeat these actions/ refer back to them through her storytelling, so does not yet recognise the importance of this element for the audience.

Becoming Oral StorytellersBeing a Storyteller for The First Time:Strengths and weaknesses

• This more able child showed good evidence of her learning in literacy and grammar work throughout her story telling ( e.g. incorporating adverbs and time connectives into her story.) Unfortunately she fidgeted and rocked throughout her story telling which was very distracting for the audience.

• This SEN child has very low confidence and self esteem. She has very limited real life experiences and a poor range of vocabulary. She can rarely answer a question accurately or confidently, access a task independently or re-call the main events of the day. She did though, have a go at telling her story with only one chosen pupil in the room and clearly enjoyed the experience.

Next StepsThe Next Steps For Our Pupils

To develop bank of storytelling experiences.

The Next Steps For Our School

- Speaking and Listening skills across subject