Key takeaways:

- Training and Feedback Opportunities: The training provides a platform for giving feedback and assessing the usefulness of the Tales Toolkit for specific groups of children, enabling targeted interventions and further research opportunities.

- Participants and Scope: The initiative involves all participating preschools and nurseries, with plans to include additional settings in future training, ensuring broad engagement and application.

- Resource Distribution: Teacher packs and parent letters are distributed to participating settings, with provisions for follow-up via Skype, phone, or email due to budget constraints limiting in-person visits.

- Team Composition: The project team is small, consisting of four members, including the speaker, two students (both named Alice), and a child named Alo used as a test subject for toolkit activities.

- Implementation Logistics: Visits to schools require a quiet space for one-on-one work with children, either alone or with an adult present, to facilitate focused storytelling sessions.

- Evaluation Methods: The evaluation includes a simple receptive vocabulary test (matching words to pictures) to assess language development, a social problem-solving task for older children to gauge flexibility, and key worker observations on behavior and peer/staff relationships, alongside collecting story examples.

- Handling Aggressive Themes in Stories: Research indicates that about one-third of preschoolers’ stories include aggressive actions, often towards fictional creatures (e.g., dragons), reflecting a safe exploration of boundaries; adults should reinforce that play is pretend, humanize characters to foster empathy, and guide children towards prosocial solutions without labeling actions as “wrong.”

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