Case studies

North Tyneside Council's project to improve speech, language and communication in the early years of a child’s life has helped to reduce the gap between socio-economically disadvantaged children and their peers.

Wiltshire Council funded a 12 month project focusing on supporting 'hard to engage' fathers of children under the age of one, including unborn children.

The BookTrust’s Storytime Prize aims to build confidence and enjoyment in sharing books with children and encourage visits to the library, by inviting families to explore and vote for their national Storytime prizewinning book.

Tameside Story Makers has weekly storytelling sessions targeted at preschool-aged children.

In June 2023 the LGA were awarded funding to support the sharing of good practice across LAs, which supports the development of Family Hubs.

Introduction 

From Winter 2021 to Spring 2022, Cheshire East Libraries undertook a review of Storytime session provision across all libraries in the authority. The return to in-person activities post COVID-19 made this an excellent time to look at Storytime sessions.

The Story Buses were initially launched in January 2020. The buses arose from the need to replace the library vehicle fleet and resulted in two Story Buses, named Sam and Nelly by the children, with exciting exterior designs by illustrator Nick Sharratt and interiors with well-designed spaces to sit and read.

Staffordshire Libraries and Arts Service run a very successful annual Summer Reading Challenge. Early Years practitioners in Staffordshire reported a negative impact on the development of early speech and language as a result of the pandemic. The Mini Summer Reading Challenge seemed an ideal programme to support parents and settings with early speech and language in the home learning environment.

The Start Well Wheel is a tool for parents/carers to track all appointments and key milestones in their child’s life.