Michael O'Leary: Hagstone Story Teller

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Photos from the
"Sting in the Tale" Festival:
Samantha Cooke Photography

On the 30th April 2010 eighty seven authors and illustrators signed a letter to The Guardian supporting the boycott of SATS (standard assessment tasks) called for by head teachers in the NUT and NAHT unions. This also affects storytellers who work in schools.

Mike drafted this letter to the Guardian, and collected the signatures of 61 storytellers:

We are professional storytellers who work in a variety of venues, but who do a great deal of our work in schools.

We would like to support the letter from Authors against SATS that was published in the Guardian letters page on 30th April.

Storytelling is fundamental to children's learning, not just as a prerequisite for literacy, but to develop the children's grasp of
language, critical thinking and ability to debate. We oppose SATS because we believe that the written, box ticking exercise is antithetical to the development of oral language and narrative. It compromises our work in schools.

Ah well - the letter never got into the paper.

The timing was because it was an immediate response, and support, to the letter sent by authors and illustrators. The timing was unfortunate in that a little event called the General Election
happened to coincide. Never mind - one letter to a newspaper hardly has too much effect.

What may be more important is that a lot of storytellers were
willing, at short notice, to give their support to this letter. We
often grumble at the lack of recognition given to storytellers, but
maybe we need to engage more with issues that are directly relevant to our craft. A lot of us make the bulk of our living working in schools, and we should not consider this somehow inferior to working with adults. We should engage with the issues in the way that so many children's authors have.

 

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