Good question! Tales Toolkit is a package of online training and open-ended  classroom resources designed around the development of storytelling skills in  the early years. The training is designed to prioritise quality interactions  with the children, as research into early childhood education highlights that  the greatest positive impacts on development come from sustained shared  thinking between practitioners and children.
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Read more  about our impact and what's included in the package.

When a setting subscribes to Tales Toolkit, teachers and  practitioners get access to all the following:
- Unlimited access for all staff to all our online resources (including training, webinars and  printables)
- 1 x complete set  of physical resources* worth £100: 4 x story bags, 1 x apron, 1 x story  strip, 1 x hanger, 1 x A5 Shuffle Book, 1 x Record Book
- Ongoing  support from the Tales Toolkit team and 1-2-1 chats with the founder, Kate Shelley whenever you ask
- Join a network  of like-minded practitioners with regular online  meet-ups
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*Members can purchase additional resources from the shop in the Members Area.

Read more about what's  included in the package.

We are constantly adding to our catalogue of resources and  working to improve your experience with us. If you've got an idea for a  resource, webinar or anything really, we're all ears! Email us at info@talestoolkit.com

The package was designed by and for early years  practitioners working with children aged 0-5 but is not restricted to this age group. Tales Toolkit is also used in KS1, KS2 and in settings with varying age ranges (e.g. special educational needs or high levels of English as an additional language). Read more about Tales Toolkit.

Yes - we're actually designing a separate training programme for families with  support from the OVO Foundation and we hope to release it in 2025. Until the  new training programme is complete, there is a collection of videos and  resources created specifically for parents and guardians to use at home. Please note that currently available content was created during the Covid-19 pandemic. If you'd like to hear more about getting access to home-learning resources, email us.

It sure can. Many of our settings use Tales Toolkit alongside other interventions, such as  Helicopter Stories and Talk for Writing (Pie Corbett). These methods can  complement each other and we recognise that the best approach to teaching and  learning is multidimensional.

Absolutely! Tales Toolkit's methods and resources (including our symbols and story bags)  were designed for accessibility.

Yes, it does! The Tales Toolkit package encompasses training and ongoing development  opportunities that satisfy legislative guidance for teachers' professional  development.

Once payment has been paid, you will get immediate access to all our online services, including training and a variety of resources. Every practitioner in a membership setting can make their own login to the members area and  access web resources at any time. The physical classroom resources will be delivered to your setting (or an address of your choosing) as soon as possible. UK orders are typically delivered via Royal Mail; please allow for at least 2 weeks to process orders and delivery. International orders may take longer.

Our core training is delivered online with 5 videos, each  roughly 50 minutes long. We highly recommend watching these videos together as a team to ensure consistent  implementation of the training and, more importantly, because it's fun! Timed  activities within the videos are designed to get you and your colleagues  thinking creatively and get you excited to start telling stories with the  children.

Each video will focus on a different topic or resource. You will learn why storytelling is such a  powerful tool for learning, how to follow our storytelling model and ways to  implement all our classroom resources easily and creatively. The 5 videos  should be spaced across 3 or 4 months to allow time for embedding. By the end  of your first term with Tales Toolkit, you'll have everything you need to  make inspired stories with the children and the children will be making leaps  and bounds in their own stories.

Our  training videos are further supported by additional resources including  webinars with experts available to stream from the members area.

Cost will vary depending on the kind of setting and is paid annually as a subscription.

For the majority of settings, we offer the Standard Package. The standard Tales Toolkit package costs £200 a year, plus a one-off setup fee of £600 to cover administrative costs and production and delivery of the physical resources (£800 for the first year, £200 thereafter).

The Childminder Package is priced at £50 per year with a setup fee of £100 in the first year (£150 for the first year, £50 thereafter).

Other offers are available for settings joining as a group (federations and  multi-academy trusts) and very small settings with limited  resources.

We recommend that once you complete your first training video, you and your team deliver  at least one story session a week in your classroom. These can be integrated into other activities and also form continuous provision. And remember, Tales Toolkit sessions are designed to be Low-to-No-Planning.

Sadly, it's not that simple. Non-members are welcome to purchase our shuffle book by creating a free account and visiting the shop in the members area. The rest of the resources are only available to paying members. In order to protect the integrity of our method, we only allow kit to be bought from practitioners who go through our training because we believe the training is essential to getting the best impact.

Where to start?! Tales Toolkit has shown incredible impact for many of the key areas of the EYFS: language and communication, creativity, confidence, problem-solving … In a study carried out with Goldsmiths' University, it was found that Tales Toolkit also helps to close the gender literacy gap, bringing boys' writing up to match with girls'.

Tales Toolkit is also a great for continuing professional development, brings the whole team together and is designed to reduce teacher workload. Both children and teachers agree that Tales  Toolkit is great fun too.

Get more detail about the benefits of Tales Toolkit.

There are lots of pots of funding that can be used to fund  a Tales Toolkit subscription.

At  your setting, you might have allocated budgets such as those listed:
- Pupil Premium
- EYFS Budget
- Literacy  Funding
- Staff Training/CPD Budget
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Or there may be external  authorities or partnering organisations that you can contact to get their  support with funding:
- Local  Authority
- Academy Trust
- Early Years  Stronger Practice Hub
- PTA

And we are always seeking out charitable funding projects to get involved with and advertise these to our audience as much as possible. To stay up to date with possible funding opportunities, sign up to our newsletter or follow us on social media.