Storytelling for schools
Hannah Murray has trained and worked with The International School of Storytelling, The Story Museum, and Storytelling Schools. She brings a wealth of storytelling experience to her stories, incorporating her educational experience as a primary school teacher and her creativity from her work as an illustrator.
Hannah travels the country doing storytelling performances and storytelling workshops for EYFS, KS1 and KS2. She has a range of stories in her repertoire that link to the literacy curriculum, including stories from other cultures, and myths and legends. She brings her story suitcases, full of magical objects and pictures, to inspire and support children telling, writing and drawing their own stories.
Her workshops can be tailored to focus on specific concepts for your pupils to develop their own writing, for example expanded noun phrases or adverbials. Bespoke workshops can also be used to spark imaginations and introduce new topics, or to celebrate special events such as World Book Day.
A story in a day WORKSHOP
Hannah will arrive at your venue or school with a suitcase filled with curiosities, and starts the day with an dynamic storytelling performance, followed by a workshop filled with magical lands and interesting characters.
Children are encouraged to create their own stories as a class and as individuals, guided by Hannah's understanding of what it takes to create a spell-binding story.
This is a perfect workshop to suit all learning styles and abilities, and is particularly good for engaging reluctant writers. Full and half day workshops are available.
Story performances
Hannah brings characters and stories to life in the classroom with her live oral storytelling performances. She can do up to six performances in a day, which she will for different age ranges within the school.
Hannah also creates bespoke performances for schools on request - past performances have included re-tellings of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Just So Stories, Jack and the Beanstalk, Chinese folk tales and stories from Norse mythology.
Please get in touch with Hannah if there is a particular theme or story your class wishes to explore!
draw a story workshop
Hannah combines her skills as a storyteller and as an illustrator in this fast-paced, fun workshop. After telling a story, Hannah invites to whole class to co-create a new version, that she draws as it’s told.
The children will then have their own opportunity to draw their own “story scroll”, which they can then use as a plan for creative writing or art projects.
A unique and exciting way to bring stories to life. It will inspire the artistic side of your pupils and give your class a different way to plan their writing. Full or half day workshops are available.
What Schools Say
“Class 2EE loved the time you spent with us. The entire class was able to verbally tell a complex version of the Ali Baba story thanks to you. The quality has, as last year, been transformed by your input. You planned your work for us to respond exactly to what we asked for and delivered exactly that. The subsequent children’s writing included adverbs, connectives and a much richer sense of the language available to them. They were so proud that they asked to read their little books to the reception class; which we did last week. Thank you. You inspire us.”
- Year Two Teacher, Europa School
“Hannah adapted and simplified the story for our three and four year olds, yet the language remained alive with vivid, evocative vocabulary. They absolutely threw themselves into creating and performing the actions. So engaging...we would thoroughly recommended Hannah.”
- Early Years Practitioner, Kiddylinguistics Multilingual Preschool
“I’m going to go home and tell my nine-month-old baby brother the story!”
- Child participant of a workshop