Terrestrial Director Tom Spencer spent the summer term of 2024 working with Year 4 students at three first schools in Frome. He supported more than 200 8 and 9-year-olds to create their own wild stories.

Each week Tom would share a seasonal folk tale - performed in the classroom. Then he’d offer a set of creative challenges and the children would get to work drawing maps, conjuring characters and building their own imagined worlds. At the end of the term, Tom crafted an epic adventure with each class - drawing on ideas from every child’s individual work.

Over the course of the following two years, Tom returned to these schools several times, and he visited every other first school, primary and middle school across Frome to run storytelling sessions. Sometimes he’d pop in and tell a quick tale in assembly (eg. to promote our Warm Space at the Library) and sometimes he’d work with classes over several weeks (eg. for Selwood Stories, a project in St John’s). From acrobatic rats to baby-eating plants, bogey monsters to ninja grandmothers, Tom has heard and shared hundreds of young people’s wonderful, wild stories.

‘We have been loving your storytelling sessions! The children have collaborated so happily and taken ownership of their stories with huge enthusiasm. The whole class has entered into the spirit of storytelling, from the children usually least engaged in English lessons to the children who love reading and writing. Everyone has thrown themselves into the sessions and it is the highlight of our Fridays! The behaviour of the children has been fantastic because they are all enjoying themselves and drawn into the stories so well by you.’
- Year 4 teacher, Vallis First School