Children at St Stephens Community Academy have been celebrating National Storytelling Week.

National Storytelling Week takes place every year and is a celebration of the power of sharing stories. Stories teach us about the world, they allow us to step into someone else’s shoes and feel empathy, they help us to relax and escape and they can help develop essential literacy skills.

At the start of National Storytelling Week, headteacher Mrs Furber shared one of her favourite authors, Michael Rosen, telling a story about ‘The Go Kart’.

There was lots of laughter and excitement in the hall.

The children discussed what made a good story and the different ways a story can be shared — something that they do at St Stephens every day.

Mrs Furber explained that storytelling is an ancient art form and a valuable form of human expression because story is essential to so many art forms, however, the word “storytelling” is often used in many ways.

This is also why our school value this week is ‘Creativity’.

At St Stephens reading is at the heart of our curriculum, with storytelling being an integral part of this, which happens not only during storytelling week, but throughout each and every week.