Tales Toolkit Makes an Impact

We’re proud to be an evidence-based language intervention that’s backed by published research. Find information on our research portfolio here and data from published work.

Read about our work with

Education Endowment Foundation Goldsmiths University

Impressive Results

Since the creation of Tales Toolkit, we've taken pride in our strong foundation of research that shows the real-world impact of Tales Toolkit on both practitioners and children. Our research partners have included the Education Endowment Foundation, Goldsmiths University of London, The Mercers Company and the Institute of Employment Studies.

Education Endowment Foundation Pilot

In July 2025, the EEF published their findings from a pilot with 30 settings in which practitioners reported positive outcomes across many areas of learning.

"Practitioners ... reported being highly motivated to deliver the intervention and reported increased confidence and changes in practice regarding supporting children’s language, quality interactions, collaborative play, storytelling, and child-led learning. Practitioners also reported perceived positive outcomes for children in CLL and PSED, including creativity, storytelling, writing, vocabulary, speech, problem-solving skills, turntaking, and sharing. Some practitioners reported especially positive outcomes for children with SEND and EAL."

"Tales Toolkit Pilot Report" (Education Endowment Foundation, 2025)

Goldsmiths University of London

Goldsmiths University have been our trusted research partner for many years. In 2018, Dr Alice Jones Bartoli published the study ‘Using storytelling to promote literacy, communication and socio-emotional development in the early years”.

Dr. Alice Jones Bartoli

Director of School and Family Studies at Goldsmiths University & Deputy Director of Education and Early Years at the National Children's Bureau

Cross-curriculum impact:

“Children in schools using Tales Toolkit make more progress”

Closed the gender literacy gap by 62%:

"Boys who had a year of doing Tales Toolkit showed significantly greater catch-up with their female peers"

"Using storytelling to promote literacy, communication and socio-emotional development in the early years" (Dr Alice Jones Bartoli, 2018)

Download Goldsmiths University Study

Read the full report, complete with fancy graphs and technical jargon.

Awards

Tales Toolkit has received many awards over the years as a testament to the impact it can have and the joy it can bring.

Improvement across EYFS and closing the gender literacy gap

Children using Tales Toolkit saw greater improvement compared to children in settings not using Tales Toolkit

Our study with Goldsmiths University found that Tales Toolkit made a statistically significant difference to the gender literacy gap, with boys’ writing catching up with the girls’. This finding got national recognition and was featured on Nursery World.