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Tonya Meers – Chief Storyteller at Little Creative Days – shares her thoughts on PSHE

“Teaching PSHE subjects through storytelling has many benefits and reinforces the learning” says Tonya Meers of Little Creative Days.

Everyone loves a good story and children are natural storytellers so why not capitalise on that as an interesting way to teach many of the areas in PSHE?

Using stories can create a meaningful setting for learning. It can help children to make sense of their own world. For example, allowing children to tell a story from two different viewpoints can give them an understanding of tolerance and how to take accounts of others’ feelings when exploring relationships.

Using a story can help a child relax and convey their thoughts and feelings in a way that is less intimidating or frightening for them. It can help them to realise that they aren’t alone if a character in a story is going through something similar.

By using the power of stories you can encourage the children to participate. E.g. why not get the children to write a story about a child who only eats sweets as part of a lesson on healthy eating. This could be a really fun story to write but at the same time the children are learning about the differences of healthy and unhealthy eating.

Using props to create stories can also be a great way to learn, especially for younger ones. So may be a lesson on how to deal with an emergency would be getting the children to act out a scenario where there was a fire and they need to call the fire brigade. Props you might need could include a telephone, fireman’s helmet, a street map, and a bell.

By using stories in this way you can cover a lot of the key learning aims for all ages in a way that both the children and the teachers will really enjoy. It can also help the children to understand the world around them, which as we know can be quite confusing at any age.

That’s the benefit of a good story…it doesn’t matter how old you are to enjoy one!

About the author: Tonya Meers is Chief Storyteller at Little Creative Days. They supply educational creative storytelling kits. The kits are suitable for EYFS/KS1 (3-6) and KS2 aged children (6 – 9 years) and cover topics covered in the national curriculum.