UK's First Story Cube at Temple Learning Academy
Posted 29th January 2024
We are delighted that Temple Learning Academy is the very first school in the UK to have a Story Cube! It is inspiring young writers and even staff to embrace reading and writing for pleasure.
In Autumn 2023, the school became aware of a company, Short Edition, who specialise in making reading and writing accessible to all. Their goal is to provide reading materials, in a quick and easy format through their Online Portal and special story dispensers.
Colleagues at Temple Learning Academy contacted the company to find out more and soon realised that there was a school-based story dispenser that would be perfect for bring stories to our children. Thanks to a generous donation from the Holroyd Foundation, Temple Learning Academy was able to invest in its very own Story Cube.
The Cube is special in several ways. First, Short Edition provide an Online Portal especially for our school where hundreds of short stories, poems and comics that can be accessed and shared through a link. In additional to this Portal, these stories can be uploaded into the Cube to be printed out right in front of our eyes. This is supporting those children who have limited online access outside school. Finally, and most excitingly, the children can be the authors too and have their own stories added to the Portal and then uploaded to the Cube.
When the children realised that they could share their stories online with family and friends as well as then being chosen from the Cube they were amazed. One child explained that it had made them feel like a real author and that they would be inspired to write more.
Mr Stuart Huddleston, Principal at Temple Learning Academy, commented, "As an all-through school, we are excited to be able to develop a system where KS3/4 will become the online writing editors, checking the content of the writing and preparing it to be published with children from all year groups creating the content, through individual and shared writing that can be shared online and through the Cube."
Mrs Alex Clark, Deputy Principal at Temple Learning Academy, added, "Over time, we would like to extend our writing for pleasure competitions to parents and carers, even lending the Cube to other schools in the Trust to build collaboration and increase the excitement around writing and reading for all years. The addition of the Story Cube at Temple Learning Academy has kick started writing for pleasure in all year groups which in turn has brought the writing process to life for our children! We must thank all the members of the Short Edition who have got us up and running with so much passion and support."
