Read Up

Watch this video to see what all the fuss is about.

 

Drum up interest within your setting

You’ll want to get buy-in from leaders in your setting to ensure you’re not banging the Tales Toolkit drum alone. This is your chance to get your early years department on board and excited! Tell them all about us. Any questions, get in touch.

Apply for funding.

If ChangeX have an active fund in your area be sure to apply and work through the 30-day challenge! Once you successfully complete the challenge, we will send you the training kit as part of the funding.

Access Online Training

Staff log in to our online Members Area where they can access our training and a load of extra goodies like webinars with early years experts, downloadable story resources, inspiration and more, Check out this short video to learn more..

Receive Resources

Your Tales Toolkit storytelling kit will arrive in the post, containing one of each of our physical resources (Big Kit, Small Kit, Apron, Hanger, Big Book & Shuffle Book).

Order Extras

We recommend having one full set of resources per class, and there may be funding available through ChangeX to help you source extra kits to suit your setting’s needs.

For a full list of resources with individual prices, see our catalogue.

 

Set Dates for Sessions

Put dates in the diary when staff can all get together and complete the five training sessions. Each session lasts no longer than an hour and you should leave a few weeks between each session.

Allocate a Leader

Choose a particularly keen bean who can print resources and lead sessions (when we say, ‘lead sessions,’ that mostly involves making sure people are there and then pressing play).

This person can act as lead contact for the Tales Toolkit team too, we’re always here to chat if you need us!

Do the Training

Watch the training films together as a team. Have fun, make a mess, and definitely don’t be afraid to be silly!

Embed TTK in your Provision

Complete the activities in between training sessions and begin your routine of one storytelling session per week with your children. Trust us, they won’t need much convincing, and once you see how little preparation is involved for each session, neither will you!

Embed for a Year

Keep that Tales Toolkit practice up! You know what they say, “Tales Toolkit’s for life, not just for that initial period after you first sign up through a ChangeX funding support programme.” You know, that old classic.

Extend Your Practice

As well as your weekly storytelling sessions, Tales Toolkit can be applied across the whole provision and is particularly helpful in real-life problem solving, discussing difficult issues and responding to world events. We encourage you to really root those story elements at the heart of your children’s learning.

Share Your Journey

Share stories with us and join our online community on social media. Also, just email us and tell us how great your children are, we love to hear it!

Plan for Year Two

In the second year you’ll have the opportunity to train parents using our bespoke and imaginatively named ‘Parent Training.’ ChangeX may even have a fund through which you can finance the extra resources that you’ll need e.g. a loan library of our Small Kits to allow parents to take some of the storytelling magic home with them and practice.

Tell the Parents

Share the fantastic stories your children have been creating with families, and get parents excited for their training.

Elect a Leader

Choose someone to take the lead on the parent training. Much like with the staff training, all our parent training will be online, so the leader will be mostly responsible for communicating with parents and organising times for training sessions.

Train Parents

Complete the training with the parents. Use your super skills, forged in the fires of the first year of Tales Toolkit, to support parents who may not be comfortable playing, interacting, engaging; who may have learning difficulties of their own or who may not speak English as their first language. We promise you, the language of story, silliness and play is universal. There’s always a little something for everyone.

Get Going with your Loan Library

Set up your loan library system and have parents and families use it to make stories at home.

Train Up any New Staff

One of the joys of Tales Toolkit is you always have access to our training. Anywhere with an internet connection, any time of day or night, it’s there for you to brush up, remind yourself, or just reassure that you’re still on track.

This also means that any new staff can be trained up quickly and easily, bringing them up to speed with the best practice of your setting and empowering them to hit the ground running in their new environment.

Enjoy

Have fun in your second year of Tales Toolkit. Enjoy making progress with the children that started using Tales Toolkit in the first year and enjoy introducing it to a whole new cohort!