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Suitable for: all ages

Learning objectives:

• To promote learning for ESD&GC through stories;
• To raise questions from stories;
• To explore hidden meanings

Narrative understanding is thought by many to be the primary meaning-making tool. We learn through stories and need to capitalise on this when working with student teachers. In this section we suggest different ways in which narrative understanding can be harnessed as a tool to promote ESDGC.

Narrative understanding can be used in a wide variety of ways to help students understand the concepts associated with ESDGC. In the first example, we have a specially written fable aimed at children at the top of Key Stage 2. Fables have been an important part of all cultures at all times in history, they are stories which have been handed down from generation to generation. Each of them raises questions to be considered and invites us to explore the hidden meanings. In the modern fable, Fable of the Orca Whale, children are invited to look beyond the surface meaning of the story to consider the deeper messages and meanings. This fable is also a metaphor that attempts to help the reader understand the reality of environmental destruction.

This fable could also be used as a stimulus for a Community of Inquiry as part of a Philosophy for Children approach to debate and discussion.

List of stories for Key Stages 1 and 2 relating to the ESD&GC concepts