It is hoped that many more schools across the borough will join them as the project progresses.
The Story Project is the creation of former English teacher Olivia Richards, who won a Let Teachers SHINE award in 2019 to develop the innovation.
Since then, the project has provided training for more than 500 teachers across the country.
It has been well received, with 90 per cent of teachers seeing an improvement in children’s wellbeing and 76 per cent seeing an improvement in children’s literacy after using the resources.
This success led to SHINE awarding this latest round of funding to benefit schools across Bradford in areas of high deprivation.
Participating schools will receive The Story Project books, training and resources for free.
Olivia said: “This is an exciting time to be introducing The Story Project in Bradford. The city has such a rich literary context, with it being the 2025 City of Culture and due to the amazing Literature Festival held in the city every year.
“Training the first five schools has been such a pleasurable experience due to the clear commitment and passion from these schools to improve children’s wellbeing and literacy.
“We feel very privileged to be able to support schools in their determination to do this and very grateful to SHINE and its donors for enabling us to do this.”
Schools taking part in the pilot are hopeful the project will make a big difference to children.
How to get involved
If you know a school in Bradford that could benefit from free books, training and resources to support children’s wellbeing and literacy, please do get in touch to find out more about eligibility and how to access it.
Get in touchZoe Mawson, Headteacher at Beckfoot Heaton Primary School and Nursery, said: “As soon as we met Olivia, we knew that The Story Project would be such a powerful way of supporting our school’s ambitions – integrating a love of books with personal development is genius!
“I know the impact for my pupils will be significant because they will LOVE it. We can’t wait to see the difference it makes to individuals, classes and the whole community.”
Lucy Azzopardi, Assistant Headteacher at Horton Park Primary School, said: “Ultimately, we anticipate that The Story Project will have a positive impact on our pupils’ social and emotional wellbeing, contributing to their overall academic success and personal growth.”
What is The Story Project?
The Story Project’s impact comes from exploring how the characters in recommended stories experience different situations that affect their wellbeing. Using a character as the focus for discussion around wellbeing helps create a sense of safety because discussing the character provides a distance between the children and the sensitive topics being discussed.
All The Story Project resources are mapped to statutory and recommended skills schools need to teach related to literacy (vocabulary, inference and retrieval) and wellbeing (Relationships, Sex and Health Education and Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education).
All resources follow the project’s unique framework accompanying the acronym: STORY.
SETTLE: Start your session with a settling activity to encourage children to be in the right frame of mind for listening and learning about their wellbeing.
TRAINING: Keep children’s emotional literacy updated by spending a couple of minutes looking at a picture from the book and discussing the different emotions the characters are feeling.
OBJECTIVE: Introduce a wellbeing objective for children to focus on when they are listening to the story
READ: Read the story and discuss the following guided reading questions as a class.
YOU: To finish the session, children have the opportunity to reflect on the book and to relate the book to themselves.
What the schools say
Lucy Azzopardi, Assistant Headteacher at Horton Park Primary School:
“It is my hope that The Story Project at Horton Park Primary will address the barriers to social and emotional wellbeing faced by our pupils.
“By leveraging the power of narrative, carefully selected story texts will provide a supportive platform for our students to explore and navigate their emotions. These stories offer valuable insights and lessons on topics such as friendship, resilience, and coping with change. Through engagement with these narratives, students will develop crucial emotional literacy skills, learn healthy coping mechanisms, and cultivate empathy.
“Ultimately, we anticipate that The Story Project will have a positive impact on our pupils’ social and emotional wellbeing, contributing to their overall academic success and personal growth.”
Gareth Baterip, Headteacher at Newby Primary School:
“Newby is really looking forward to being part of The Story Project. We were keen to be involved as it combines two of our biggest aims as a school – every child loves reading, and every child has a positive outlook on mental health issues.
“From our first meeting with Olivia we could see how the project aims to cover some tricky concepts – bereavement, financial worries etc – but in a format that children will be able to access. We know the power of stories as a vehicle to spark thought and imagination – what better way to explore mental health than through storytime.”
Zoe Mawson, Headteacher at Beckfoot Heaton Primary School and Nursery:
“Helping children learn how to be great learners and great people so they have a great life is the thread that runs through our school and so I was very keen to know more when I heard about the Story Project.
“As soon as we met Olivia, we knew that The Story Project would be such a powerful way of supporting our school’s ambitions – integrating a love of books with personal development is genius! We are very grateful to have been chosen as one of the schools to benefit.
“Having completed the pre-programme launch training, I am already extremely impressed with the quality of the programme — the evidence-based approach, the quality of the planning, the inclusivity of the books, the accessibility of the resources, the support for teachers – it’s been so well thought through.
“I know the impact for my pupils will be significant because they will LOVE it. We can’t wait to see the difference it makes to individuals, classes and the whole community.”
Danny Weldon, Assistant Headteacher at Bowling Park Primary School:
“We are delighted to be taking part in the Story Project at Bowling Park. The Story Project’s mission to use the awe and wonder of sharing stories to support children’s mental health and well-being is closely aligned with our school’s vision.
“Daily life in schools is very busy and, with many different curriculum areas to cover, it is sometimes a challenge to fit everything in. However, the beauty of the programme is that it incorporates PSHE objectives and reading comprehension strategies in a simple, easy-to-follow format. There is no planning or preparation required for the lessons; all the hard work is done for you!
“We hope that the programme will enhance our children’s emotional literacy, while giving the time and space (and vocabulary!) to discuss big feelings.
“Our Story Project journey is just beginning, but we hope that by the end of the year, its principles will be woven into the fabric of our school. We can’t wait to get started!”
Michelle Blanchard, Headteacher, Beckfoot Allerton Primary School and Nursery:
“We are delighted to be taking part in the Story Project at Beckfoot Allerton. Each book has been so thoughtfully selected and addresses the full range of objectives for our PSHE curriculum.
“The teachers have been impressed with the level of detail in each lesson plan, from the settling and recall activities to the links with literacy and vocabulary and obviously the discussion opportunities about the quality, inclusive texts.
“Our children love English, particularly reading and we know they will love listening to their teacher read to them in the Story Project lessons each week.
“Through the power of story, we hope our children will be able to improve their knowledge of many different emotions and apply these in both the school environment and the real world.”