For this collaboration Agar Children’s Centre in London twinned with Przedszkole Mieiskie nr 13 in Poland. The UK teacher, Zofia Wozniak-Rutkiewicz, worked with her Polish eTwinning partner on a project for their 3 to 5 year old pupils based around story time.

The project consisted of six story times. Three of them were classic and well known, both in the UK and Poland – Goldilocks and The Three Bears, Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella. The objectives of the project were to exchange story-telling methods between teachers, to become familiar with different methods and techniques used to tell stories, to develop language learning with the children and to develop teachers’ IT skills. They agreed that during the sessions they would incorporate new and different techniques to make story time as captivating as possible for the children. All the sessions were recorded in several ways and the final analysis gave the teachers involved an opportunity to compare the success of their techniques.

For Zofia, this was the first eTwinning project implemented to this age group within children’s centre. It helped all the teachers in the nursery class to work together and make story time exciting and inclusive for the children. The children participated by listening to and presenting the stories as well as taking part in activities related to the stories. The teachers also work closely with the parents during these activities by inviting them to take part in some of the reading and activities. Even the location of story time was experimented with, from the classroom to the nursery garden. This generated lots of enthusiasm from the children.  

As Zofia’s work focus is Early Years Foundation Stage, the project attempted to incorporate all areas of development such as communication, language, creativity, numeracy, physical activities and social skills. The children developed a real interest and enjoyment in the books and learned to share and interact with each other through participation in the various activities relating to the stories. From creating art work, using different media, building props outside in the garden and cooking, they used a wide variety of their senses.

Zofia and her partners communicated regularly using email and Skype to plan the activities for each story. It was a great way for inspiring and motivating each other in the exchange of experiences, ideas and results of using new methods in the class. The eTwinning Twinspace allowed the children to see how they could share their artwork and pictures with the children in Poland and how they could send messages to each other to say if they liked each others’ work. The use of Skype allowed them to meet and see each other and to demonstrate and practice the new words they had been learning in each other’s language, for example, they enjoyed singing songs from stories where they had learned the words for different animals.

Implementing the project was a learning process not only for the children but for the teachers as well. They learnt how to make use of the opportunities and ICT tools that the TwinSpace offered, enabling them to collaborate very effectively. They used digital cameras to take photos and record the stories, used powerpoint to create slideshows, and uploaded their work to the Twinspace. By creating presentations of the work it made everything more real and exciting for the teachers as well as the children as they knew their partners would then watch it. Smart boards were also created in the classroom so they could display the work from their Polish partners.

The most outstanding result was the progress the children made in their communication development. From analysis at the end of project almost all of the children (including children with speech and learning difficulties and english as an additional language) were achieving above expectations in this area. This success has encouraged Zofia to share and disseminate the project idea, the new ways of learning and the impact it has had, to colleagues from other children’s centres and managers involved in Early Years Foundation Stage.

Story time has become a very important part of the day at the centre. The project has expanded and is used to help develop and support other staff members’ skills in story-telling. The project is not time consuming to plan and does not require special knowledge or equipment, it simply requires people with ideas and enthusiasm. With a little adaption the techniques can be used with younger and older children and Zofia has already been contacted by other local and overseas teachers, expressing their interest in getting involved.