How To Tell Your School's Story: Your Fairytale Ending & Setting the Scene

You know you're the one who knows most about your school. But you worry that other people won't understand all that you've been through, all that you're working on, and all that you intend to do. To combat this, you know that you need to tell the story of your school, and that you need to tell it well so that anyone listening completely understands it.

In the first blog post in this series we looked at how you can tell your school's story using the 4 Cs of storytelling and by talking about 4 periods of time.

Read How To Tell Your School's Story: The 4Cs and The 4 Time Periods here

But there are two more crucial components to your storytelling that will help you to be well-prepared when you have to tell someone the story of your school:

• Your Fairytale Ending

• Setting the Scene

Telling Your School's Story: Your Fairytale Ending

Starting at the beginning seems logical, but when telling the story of your school, it’s all about the ending. Your fairytale ending is the goal that you set for all pupils. It’s the ambitious ending that you want for each of them. It’s that intent statement that describes the outcome that you want to support every child to achieve.

By identifying this ending, and describing it before you even start to tell your story, you give important context for all the rest of your storytelling. By first explaining your fairytale ending, you have provided a reason for everything that has happened, is happening and will happen in your school’s story.

Ask questions such as:

What are you trying to achieve for all your children? What is it that, ideally, all children would leave your school knowing, feeling and being be able to do?

Telling Your School's Story: Setting the Scene

It’s really hard to get into a story when you don’t understand the world it is set in. Imagine trying to read what you think is a fairy tale only to find out it is set in space – you’d be really confused! When telling your story, it’s really important to set the listener up with an

understanding of where it takes place. The context of your school, as it is commonly known, will have a bearing on everything that has happened, is happening and will happen in your school’s story, so whoever you are telling your story to needs to know it.

Ask questions such as:

Where is your school? What’s the area like? What are the challenges? What are the enabling factors? What are outcomes typically like? What’s the staffing situation?

Telling Your School's Story: Setting the Scene - An Example

At one school I worked with recently, the headteacher and I spent some time writing a statement that set the scene for their school. I asked lots of questions; the headteacher answered them. During our time together we downloaded all the information from the headteacher's brain and summarised it carefully and simply so as to set the scene for their school's story.

The following text became the first part of the school's SEF:

Can you spot where we also added in aspects of the school's fairytale ending?

In return for a subscription to my mailing list, you can download my free storyboard tool to help you and your leadership team to map out the story of your school:

Telling Your School's Story Storyboard Tool

£0.00

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The above tool will help you to think about your fairytale ending and how to set the scene. It will also help you to think about the 4 Cs of storytelling and the 4 periods of time you need to cover in your story telling.

Telling Your School's Story: Clear and Confident Storytelling

Telling your story doesn't need to be complicated, and it doesn't need to be something you worry about. With a bit of forethought and planning ahead you can be ready and confident to tell your complete story in such a way that any 'visitor' is full briefed on all the excellent work you've done, all the things you're doing to make things even better and all the things you're planning to do next.

Although you're the one with all the inside-intel on your school, it can be difficult to know where to start. I sit down with school leaders, ask all the right questions and then help them to make sense of the answers. Together we could bring clarity to your school's story, leaving you feeling confident to tell it. All you have to do is:

1. Drop me an email

2. We'll arrange a phone call

3. We'll get a date in the diary to work together

Or, you can simply get something booked in straight away:

Consultancy Day

6h

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