School Visits to Grimm & Co
You will arrive at The Emporium of Stories, where our Story Mentors will tell you the tale of Grimm & Co, and the workshop will take place inside one of our multi-sensory, immersive spaces.
The “building blocks” of the story are created collaboratively by the whole class, while beginnings and middles are crafted in smaller groups with the support of a Grimm & Co Story Mentor. An illustrator creates the children’s conjured characters in front of their eyes, which helps ensure the class is providing rich description whilst remaining captivated with the outcome of their imaginings. Once the class has written the bulk of the story, each child will be challenged to create their own individual ending. Throughout this process they will benefit from one-to-one support from a Story Mentor.
At the end of the session, each pupil will receive a book, included within will be their own ending with their name on the front cover, as the author!
What is the class teacher’s role during a Grimm & Co workshop?
Story-making sessions are delivered by Grimm & Co’s session leaders, with support from a team of trained volunteer story mentors. You therefore won’t need to do any teaching on the day! Instead, we encourage you to sit back with a tea or coffee to observe and reflect on how your class responds to the workshop. Seeing their teachers watching and enjoying the session can also really help the engagement of the children and the dynamic of the group.
The Grimm & Co approach is friendly and informal, which means that we like it when a class gets excitable and enthusiastic about their ideas! The session leaders are trained in behaviour management and are comfortable dealing with this when required. However, if there are any particular difficulties or incidents we would welcome your additional support.
We’d also welcome your help with handing out juice and biscuits during the refreshment break, and as well as any additional support you can offer if there are any children who might have particular struggles when writing their individual endings.
You’re welcome to take photos during the session – and please feel free to Tweet / Facebook / Instagram us!