The Society for Storytelling in the UK

The Society for Storytelling (SFS) is a UK-based society founded in 1993 to support and promote storytelling in England and Wales. They aim to promote the oral tradition of storytelling which was the very first way of communicating life experiences and the creative imagination. They coordinate National Storytelling Week, which this year runs from 30th January to 5th February.

The theme for 2023 is ‘Celebrating Story’ and the SFS has a range of resources on their website packed full of tools to support the teaching of storytelling to primary school children.

Purple Mash Resources

How can you celebrate story telling in your school?

If you’re planning to celebrate storytelling in your classroom, you can find a whole host of teaching and learning resources for National Storytelling Week within Purple Mash! There’s plenty to explore for use in lessons with primary school students, from writing projects, such as book reviews and retelling famous tales, to author fact files, scene descriptions and plenty of paint projects. We’ve also included links to storytelling tools such as popular storybook animation tool 2Create a Story and publishing tools 2Publish and 2Publish Plus, as well as blank comic book and chapter book templates for children to pen their own narratives from scratch.

All these tools and more are included with a Purple Mash subscription. If you’re not currently a subscriber, you can try Purple Mash free for 14 days.

Writing Lessons

There are a range of writing projects where students can retell stories in their own way.

Here are some quick K-Y2 lesson plan ideas:

• Imagine they are Red Riding Hood and write a letter to the woodcutter to thank him for saving them
• Put themselves in the wolf’s shoes and tell the story from his perspective
• Retell the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears verbally and work in groups to present their story using different voices for each character

Y3 - Y6 children could:

• Tell their own story using our Blank Chapter Book and Blank Comic Book templates. Let them pick a theme, whether this be fairy tales, folk tales, Historical stories, or dreamtime story
• Write a short superhero story – can they choose an unlikely superhero to write about, or a superhero in their life?
• Roleplay an alien adventure before writing it down – it's sure to get some giggles!

Explore the full range of activities and lesson ideas in the National Storytelling Week area.

We would love to read any work your students do, so please share with us either by email to marketing@2simple.com, or on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

Authors & Other Activities

In this section you’ll find a range of writing tools based on the works of famous authors from Roald Dahl to Michael Rosen and Hans Christian Andersen. There are Mash Cams, allowing you to transform yourself into your favourite characters from these iconic writers, while templates for book reviews and biographies allow children to record their learning in an engaging way while thinking about how to present their ideas on paper. Find all of these activities within the National Storytelling Week area.

Serial Mash

Have you tried out Serial Mash yet?

We have recently partnered with DK Learning to bring even more books to our online library. With a subscription, you’ll be able to access these incredible non-fiction books as well as more than 140 exciting stories for your class. Also included in Serial Mash access are automated online reading journals, guided reading activities and ready-made writing resources linked to the texts you have been reading. There's even the ‘Firebolt’ series, specially created so that less-confident readers can still enjoy reading for pleasure.

Enjoy your storytelling week and as the National Society of Storytelling states:

Remember everyone has at least one story to tell. It exists in the very air around you – Your story is the one you know best and as it is only the beginning, the stories you will tell might begin with...Once upon a time or not in my time, not in your time but in someone's time...