West Lancs Community High School - Creative Storytelling

I've been really inspired by the students at West Lancs Community High as we have found different ways to tell our stories creatively. It has also been fun!

As an important part of the Sandy Lane community, I was keen to ensure students were given space to tell their stories. We used story boards to explore the story of our day and what might happen if something unusual dropped into the normal routine of life.

The students considered how they wanted to tell their story using images on a board. Here, mermaids make regular appearances through the day.

Once the storyboards were arranged students told the story of their day. This one included aliens landing in the playground and dinosaurs hatching all before breakfast.

We also worked with play dough and puppets to explore other ways to tell our stories.

Students made figures and shapes to represent themselves.

The bright tactile material is delightful to work with and enables us to create in 3D 

We worked with puppets at the final workshop and created short stories about our feelings. Students picked up the puppeteering skills exceptionally quickly and created imaginative and engaging stories with their characters.

Feedback from the sessions included:

'I liked the puppets best. It was funny!'

'I liked making up the stories [from the object box]'

'The Playdough was good. Squashy and fun!'

It has been a privilege to work with such great storytellers. Thanks to the pupils for being so welcoming and working so hard during the workshops for the Sandy Lane Project and for your invaluable contributions. I will be using lots of ideas sparked by the WLCH students in the overarching narrative for the project.