Open the Book and Bible storytelling in primary schools.

Children love stories – especially Bible stories when they’re interactive, engaging and fun.

Open the Book began in 1999 and is part of the Bible Society and from its beginning thousands of school children have discovered Bible stories, during assembly and collective worship.

Today, so many children could miss out on the great classic stories from the Bible – Noah, Daniel and the life of Jesus could be closed chapters if youngsters don’t get an opportunity to engage with the Bible.

That’s why Open the Book is so important. It’s a four year programme of themed and dramatised storytelling at no charge to primary schools. It has been favourably received by OFSTED and SIAMS and helps primary schools in meeting their statutory Collective Worship obligations under the 1998 Schools Standards & Framework Act. Open the Book is available to primary schools in England and Wales, where volunteers operate, at no cost, and with no other commitment beyond the time it takes a team to present a 10-minute Bible story once a week.

Members of our church are part of an Open the Book team that goes into Gorran School once a fortnight. Ours is a small team currently consisting of 5 people. It is an Ecumenical team as other members come from other churches in the area. Our slot in the school’s timetable is to take the assembly at 1.15 p.m every other Wednesday so we meet together in the West End rooms about an hour beforehand to rehearse the story, and make sure that all the props and costumes will enhance the performance. Complete with an introduction and conclusion to the story and a song appropriate to the theme, the assembly lasts about 20 minutes.

It is a real pleasure to see and hear the reaction of the children to all that we do. We receive a warm welcome from Jonathan Sleep and his staff and the children genuinely seem to enjoy our visits and always want to take a small part in the productions. These reasons are themselves motivation enough to go back the next time as is the knowledge that in doing so we are sharing stories of the Kingdom of God to children who perhaps would not have an opportunity to see and hear it from elsewhere.