Storytelling In Your Area - Northern Ireland: 

We are excited to share some of the positive feedback from our multi-sensory storytelling sessions at special schools across Northern Ireland. These sessions, designed to inspire and engage, have brought joy and significant benefits to students.

Hill Croft Special School, Newtownabbey

• “Pupils in this class require a sensory curriculum and you could tell through arm movements, tracking, smiling and laughing that they were actually participating in the story. Having a male voice/storyteller with great expression also took their interest. :). One pupil who had found it difficult to engage in earlier lessons today became very involved in the story and showed great interest and reactions. We have some other Bag Books in school which are well used. It was great to see a different story with lots of different ideas that could be added to curriculum planning in the future. We enjoyed the fact that there was a range of senses used throughout the story - smell, touch, hearing.”

• “Loved hearing a new person telling a story. Loved touching and feeling the items - they engaged by laughing, smiling, good eye contact, clapping. One pupil started very nervous and at times will cry in new situations and with new people but they engaged with the Storyteller and even laughed and giggled through the session. Another pupil will throw things regularly but he was able to engage with the Storyteller's help and throwing was minimal. The session kept pupils interest and helped them focus well. Today's session will help pupils to continue to maintain focus during stories. The session gave the teacher a demonstration of how to use Bag Books with the class.”

Rathore School, Newry

• “All the children sat attentively during the stories and were very focussed. The children really enjoyed touching all the various textures. [I was surprised that] all the children focussed on the storyteller throughout and appeared to be really happy. Today's session will encourage the children to listen more attentively during sensory stories. It also gave the teacher great ideas for her own sensory stories. The storyteller was excellent at delivering the story and was very gentle with the children. They really loved him. He catered for their needs very well.”

• Four pupils are non-verbal and they really enjoyed the interaction with the sensory boards during the stories and the storyteller using different accents. [I was surprised that] one child in particular was full of smiles and made a lot of vocal noises of enjoyment. The kids really enjoyed it, thank you. Lovely interaction with the kids. It was fantastic.”

Parkview Special School, Lisburn.

• "Range of multi-sensory resources to engage participants. Storyteller engaged with each participant. Length of story was appropriate for participants. All participants engaged with different parts of the story. One pupil reacted and interacted for a much longer duration than I had expected. Another experience for pupils to develop their ability to sit in a group together, and experience/participate in a multi-sensory activity."

• "Afterwards the children were very calm and relaxed. The storyteller had an amazing attitude towards the children, which added to the success of the story. A bare room with no distractions probably would have resulted in an even better result, but otherwise it was an excellent story session. All three children interacted better than expected even though they roamed around the room (NB: All severely autistic.) They were still listening and engaged in the story. The hairdressing story in particular was very relevant to one of our pupils who has issues with getting hair cut. The props used in the story were great for desensitizing in preparation for hairdressers."

Riverside School, Antrim

• "A very interactive session. The Storyteller was really good at working at the pupils' level and his use of makaton. Resources and sensory objects were fantastic at getting the attention of the pupils.  It surprised me that some of the pupils sat very well throughout at least one story, and all were able to take part in some manner. The session was good at helping to build the pupils attention which will, in turn, benefit pupils during activities especially group work and attention autism.

• "Completely interactive. Pupils all fully engaged and motivated to participate. Excellent. Pupils all fully reactive. Two pupils who have ASD in particular, showed brilliant responses to The Fairground story. Gave me as teacher, better insight to the books, and will use them within my literacy lessons."

• "It was a wonderful multi-sensory approach. Pupils loved the interactive element of the story. It was excellent! Pupils enjoyed the sensory experience touching / smelling / feeling new textiles and smells. [In the longer term this will help with] linking to literacy & communication and developing makaton."

Clifton Special School, Bangor

• "Multi-sensory, interactive session that involved each individual child. Pitched at just the right level for children. A great session in class due to the nature of the children participating which was greatly appreciated. Some of the pupils made an individual effort to interact with the props which showed how engaged they were with the story. Looking forward to using the Bag Books the school will be receiving. Lots of great ideas for how to take storytelling forward in class too."

• "The children enjoyed feeling, smelling, pulling, pushing and listening to the voices used to tell the story. This kept their focus and enjoyment for the full 30 minutes. Children reacted positively and listened extremely well. Thank you for the stories! I feel this will improve their fine motor skills, interest and imagination."

• "Lots of sensory input. Great fun-loads of giggles from the kids. Kept their attention really well. One of our CAs said that a lot of people who come into our classroom cannot come down to the level of our kids, but your storyteller certainly did! One boy touched the equipment a lot more than we expected. Great focus from another boy. Will help their attention. Gives some nervous kids confidence to try new things."