In school

In school

Welcome! If you’re interested in using What’s Your Story? in your school for assemblies, workshops or school events, this is a great place to start. Our modules and resources have been designed to help you embed the WYS values and skills into the life and culture of your whole school. There are workshops (to conduct across grades), ideas for assemblies, and school story events for learners, parents and teachers to enjoy.

Start here

As a starting point for all What’s Your Story? School activities, we strongly recommend that you begin by working through our short introduction module.

View the Intro Module

Assemblies

Assembly guide

Our discussion guide provides engaging topics and activities to accompany the screening of the film.

The award-winning film Beyond the River is a great resource to promote a culture of respect, better understanding and empathy in your school. The story touches themes relevant to all of these on key holidays:

Heritage Day
Freedom Day
Youth Day

Workshops

These workshop plans build skills related to listening, asking and telling. The activities are carefully scaffolded to build learners’ listening skills before they begin asking and telling stories.

We recommend that you do them in order, beginning with asking and listening, before moving on to a telling module. To prepare, read through the handouts and watch or read any of the transcripts or videos before the workshop.

If you have facilities to play audio-visual content, then the two-day workshop is a great option for you as it will include the screening of the film Beyond the River.

If you don’t have audiovisual facilities, don’t worry, the half-day and full-day workshops don’t require any.

Asking and listening

Asking and Listening Workshop (Half Day)

Asking and Listening Workshop (One Day)

Asking and Listening Workshop (Two Day)

Telling

Telling Workshop (Half Day)

Telling Workshop (One Day)

Telling Workshop (Two Day)

Events

A What’s Your Story? story sharing festival is a fun event for the whole school. Learners from across grades can submit a story that they want to share. Teachers select the best submissions to be performed or told at either an assembly, fundraiser, or public holiday event. It is a wonderful way to highlight the rich diversity of experiences and backgrounds that the learners in your school share. A story sharing festival can include any of the following forms:

Written stories submitted and read by learners.
Short films or dramas developed and performed by learners.
A visual or photographic story sharing festival.

You can also use specific kinds of stories for your story sharing festival or event that relate to different public holidays.

A What’s Your Story? story sharing festival is a fun event for the whole school. It is a wonderful way to highlight the rich diversity of experiences and backgrounds that the learners in your school share.

"Story-sharing creates trust in the classroom. It helps create a bridge between different generations."
Amara, teacher

Have you used a What's Your Story? resource or module at your school? We'd love to hear about it. Please fill in the form below and let us about know your experience.

What's Your Story - School