Today saw another two Year 9 students form East Bergholt High School sit down and read stories to the years 1 and 2 from East Bergholt Junior school.  The teachers were keen to tell us that their children were buzzing about it being Wednesday and because it is Wednesday is when the Story tellers come from the Senior school to tell them stories.  Wednesday has become a special day in that school for those children and that by itself is awesome!

Filming today at the Iceni School in Colchester was a blast and Tom Carson will be editing the film shots to put on the website and social Media within the next day or two.

If you have ever read to a child and asked questions exploring the plot, character, drawings and how well they liked the story you will know of the magic moments shared by you both and the benefits of having those moments.
For those children who don't get read to at home on a regular basis this scheme goes some way to filling in that gap.  Watching 13 and 14 year old children questioning and telling stories and questioning again reminds me very much of Debbie reading to our two daughters.  That magic is still there between the reader and the whole class of children.
​I really hope we can roll this out to other schools. 

Third time now that I have watched 13 and 14 year old students from East Bergholt high school read stories to years one and two and ask questions about those stories "Did you like the main character?" and "What was the funniest bit?" and "Who was your favourite character and why?" and I am watching this interaction between the older children telling stories and the younger children listening to the stories and I am in awe of the strong and immediate connection between the story tellers and their listeners.  They are having a conversation and both of the older and younger kids are learning so much!
Before tech children learned about the world from the stories they heard and were told.  Before schools the only way of understanding the world at all was from the stories they were told.
We are missing a trick here.  All of schooling is not about stories (examples and resolutions and choices in stories.) but it could be.  I am beginning to think that we need to give story telling a lot more attention than just thinking of it as a sweet pastime. 
​More later...

World book day is here again and I shall be spending it entertaining and hopefully inspiring the children at the Iceni school in Colchester,  It is always nice to be asked back several times to a school and the staff and pupils there are always so creative.
On this day we will be doing 'story bombing' and 'Two story to a story' Safari with acting out being Lions and Elephants (new part of the sessions) with story readings to the younger ones.