Written by Olivia Monks, Marketing & Social Media Executive at Literacy Counts

I recently had the pleasure of speaking to Mrs Sara Ritchie, the Nursery Class Teacher and EYFS Lead at Stockton Wood Primary School, Liverpool. I was able to ask all about how they’ve adapted Ready Steady Write (which is well embedded across Reception - Year 6) for their nursery children. It was a delight to speak to Sara, and throughout the call she was clearly passionate about and dedicated to raising the oracy outcomes for her Nursery Class.

Why did your school decide to adapt the Ready Steady Write EYFS approach for your Nursery children?

‘The headteacher and I attended your project, ‘Getting it Right in EYFS’ back in 2023/24. We already had Ready Steady Write successfully implemented in Reception up to Year 6, but following an Ofsted inspection, we knew a target area for our school was to make positive changes to our Nursery. Our children come into Nursery with lower-than-expected communication and language skills. We used this EYFS project as an opportunity to use the Ready Steady Write recipe and adapt it for the younger age.

I began using my own adapted version of Ready Steady Write in Nursery in the first Autumn Term (September 2023). In Spring Term 1 (2024), during the Literacy Counts EYFS Project, all delegates presented to the project group what impact we had seen in the classroom using Ready Steady Write. I played a video of my Nursery Class retelling the traditional tale, The Gingerbread Man. I had written my own version of the story in the style of a Ready Steady Write EYFS Story Song. I chose vocabulary with purpose and made sure it was ambitious but suitable for these younger learners. The delegates, leaders and consultants in attendance of the EYFS Project were blown away by their retelling. Although the children had been formally taught this story in Autumn Term 1, still in Spring Term 1, they could remember and recite the story with enthusiasm and deep understanding. Thanks to the Ready Steady Write structure, the vocabulary had been embedded and they could remember the story with fluency.

I am very passionate about retelling stories in the classroom. I remember training from years ago by Gareth (CEO of Literacy Counts) where he said “...children can’t write a story if they can’t verbally retell the story first...”. This really stuck with me, and it has been a big part of my teaching and classroom ethos since.

What elements of Ready Steady Write did you introduce to your Nursery children?

‘The main aspect of Ready Steady Write that we introduced was the Story Friends. There are 4 Story Friends which help children identify different parts of a simple story. Octopus Opening, Build up Bear, Problem Penguin and Elephant Ending. In Ready Steady Write they support children’s understanding of how stories work by looking at 4 story elements. Our Nursery children can now confidently talk about each Story Friend and what part of a story they represent.

Another Ready Steady Write aspect we introduced was Sentence Snake. Although Nursery children are not yet writing (due to their age) we still wanted to introduce Sentence Snake and the process/language that comes with using Sentence Snake to create accurate sentences. Sentences we’ve orally rehearsed are laid out along Sentence Snake. The children join in by repeating back the words and clapping along to the structure of words and the sentence. This is great for preparing them for what they’ll see in their EYFS Ready Steady Write lessons. I believe the sooner you expose children to these skills, the quicker they’ll pick them up!’

What does a typical Ready Steady Write session look like in your Nursery?

‘As there are not yet Ready Steady Write units specifically for Nursery, we have chosen our own ‘Vehicle Texts’. We have purposefully chosen traditional tales as these tend to contain the expected 4 parts of a story that the Story Friends represent. In the Autumn Term I chose simpler texts and texts the children are more likely to have already come across before. For the Summer Terms, I’ve been able to choose more complex traditional tales now that the children are familiar with the role of the Story Friends and the process of learning a story. I spent about a week building the suspense around the chosen tale in the style of the Ready Steady Write ‘Immerse’ lessons. We hooked the children with lots of story resources, puppets, story spoons, surprises in the classroom, questioning and discussion.

We then introduced the Story Friends one at a time. I wrote a script for each story friend and filled it with expressive, repetitive and new language – we added new vocabulary as they went e.g. ‘Jack met a mysterious man’. To match with what is seen in the EYFS units, I made cards in the style of the Ready Steady Write Story Songs. We focused on lots of sequencing of the cards as a whole class to promote discussion. Everything discussed in these sessions is added to the working wall, just like you see in the official units. It is lovely to see the children independently accessing this working wall during their provision time.

This all feeds into the Continuous Provision. Here a few examples of provision activities linked to when we learnt ‘Jack and the Bean Stalk’:

Children built their own multilink bean stalk - ‘getting taller, taller and taller’
Children grew their own beans – ‘getting taller, taller and taller...but how?’
Small world challenge – build a ‘magnificent’ castle - ‘Hmmm, this is not magnificent enough! What else can you add?’

Linking the provision activities to the story (that they were already so engaged with) added purpose and challenge to their activities and promoted the use of all that new vocabulary.’

Have you seen a positive impact in outcomes since using Ready Steady Write in Nursery?

‘Yes! We have seen the impact of using the Ready Steady Write approach in Nursery through our ‘Wellcomm’ assessments.

WellComm results in our Nursery setting:

October 2023 – total children: 21

38% of children were working in line with the age-appropriate section (8 children)

January 24 – total children: 30

47% of children were working in line with the age-appropriate section (14 children)

April 24 – total children: 31

58% of children were working in line with the age-appropriate section (18 children)

July 24 – total children: 31

68% of children are now working in line with the age-appropriate section (21 children)
of the 10 of children who are working below age-appropriate section, 6 are working only one section below their age expected section

Our lowest 20% are supported by our additional staff who are focusing on children’s individual oracy targets. We worked hard to ensure strong staff engagement, which allows vocabulary to be embedded at all opportunities. Since using the Ready Steady Write approach, our additional adults can now better target support for the lowest 20% but also provide challenge for our more able learners.’

Pupil Voice – what do they like about Ready Steady Write?

‘Their passion for the story shines. Now, all I have to say is “Everybody we’re going to tell a story” and the children are excited and gather around the board eagerly, with their hands ready in their Octopus Opening gesture (closed story book). They proudly retell their stories. Since implementing aspects of Ready Steady Write into our Nursery setting, our children can now retell stories beautifully but just as importantly, they fully understand the stories they are retelling. They LOVE stories and want to help the Story Friends. I believe their love for stories will only continue to grow.’

Leadership Voice:

‘It was lovely to see Ready Steady Write in action in your classroom. It was even more exciting as it was a child-initiated activity! Child X’s retelling of The Three Little Pigs was flawless. It is obvious that you have used the 'Story Friends' effectively as Child X used these as cues to retell the story (complete which character voices) brilliantly. If we have children in our Nursery retelling stories this well, as a Year 1 teacher I am excited for our future readers and writers! The children are clearly engaging with the programme (Ready Steady Write) and you are truly laying the Foundations for Life.’

-Trish Kent, Assistant Headteacher &SENCO

“Introducing Ready, Steady Write into our Nursery curriculum has been a huge success at Stockton Wood! Our children’s communication and language skills have developed greatly (as evidenced in our data), but it has also been evident that the children have enjoyed their learning. They are proud to showcase their story telling skills and I am equally proud of Sara’s dedication to making this happen. Our school vision of ‘Laying the Foundations for Life’ is fully supported with our Ready Steady Write activities starting with our Nursery cohort. “

- Justine Clovis, Head Teacher

“It was a real privilege to begin the morning with a drop in to see Nursery children - and to hear them provide a wonderful recounting of the story Jack and the Beanstalk, in words and actions.”

- Paul Bradshaw, Senior School Improvement Officer/Excellence and Improvement Partner

Parent Voice:

Proud parents were invited to watch Nursery perform one of their story retellings. Here is a selection of comments shared by parents on the day.

'The way in which Mrs Ritchie engaged the children in story time was amazing to see. The children remained engaged and were actively involved in the telling of the story. A fully interactive experience for the children and it was incredible to witness as a parent.’
'I loved hearing the children telling the story. They knew the names of the Story Friends and knew the sequence of the story. Thank you for letting us see!’
‘It was beautiful to see how the children could tell a story from start to finish at such a young age. The children were using so many new words and could explain what those words meant when they were asked.’
‘I absolutely loved the story telling board with pictures that Nursery used in Graduation assembly. It was lovely to see how much of an interest and how much the children enjoyed taking part in telling the story. I have told everyone about it!’

A big thank you:

A big thank you to Sara for meeting with me to share all about her Ready Steady Write adventure with her Nursery class. It was a joy to speak to Sara and her knowledge and dedication to improving outcomes was infectious.

You can keep up to date with the Nursery Class at Stockton Wood through their X (Twitter) page, @YNStocktonWood.

As Literacy Counts continues to grow, we are working on having specific units for Nursery settings. These units will be of the same quality as you see in Reception – Year 6 and shall contain all the resources needed to improve outcomes while also reducing workload. In the meantime, we hope this blog post has given you some ideas of how you can bring aspects of Ready Steady Write into your Nursery classroom.

Ready Steady Write is comprehensive and evidence-based. It provides a sequenced, ambitious curriculum, that places quality literature at its core. Our units have been carefully mapped out to match the entire statutory curriculum for writing. There is also a recent exciting update! The new PLUS+ features (free for members) offer new units including Shakespeare (Year 2 - Year 6), Olympics (EYFS - Year 6) and much more to come! These Ready Steady Write PLUS+ units offer more choice for your school while supporting curriculum design.

See the impact in your school and get your free sample access today by emailing hello@literacycounts.co.uk, calling 07522 514759 or visiting www.literacycounts.co.uk.