When we started, we hoped that the use, of the 'Tales Toolkit' resources would have an impact on the speech and language skills of a COVID affected cohort that had huge gaps in this area. We found that the ease of use of the resources meant that not only did the children use these as part of whole-class teaching sessions but that the children wanted to use the story sacks independently as drivers to their play in continuous provision. The children clearly developed their speech and language skills (evidenced by the WellComm screening test) but also really developed their thinking and creative skills in developing their own stories. All staff felt that the resources were really easy to use and have expanded its use into nursery as a result. Parents also loved the ease of using the resources as part of our last 'stay and play' session. We are hoping that the continued use of the resources this year with a much more capable cohort will have a huge impact on our early year performance data.

We are hoping the challenge will have a huge impact, having seen the resource being used in a local school. We know that our cohorts have very limited communication skills on entry as we are in a very economically deprived area, plus we have increasing numbers of children with English as an additional language. We discussed that the simple idea of storytelling can hopefully have a huge impact on their language development. We also think that independent use of the resource in continuous provision will have a huge impact on independence. (Photo to follow as the meeting had to be virtual due to COVID numbers in school as per my COVID plan).

We will have our first 'official' meeting this Friday at 3.30pm at Eastcroft Park! As soon as I work out how to schedule events on her I will make it official!

Hello all. I'm just in the process of getting my team members sorted for the project! I'm really excited to start planning to use such a fantastic resource!