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Alastair Daniel and The Story Tent have ceased professional touring after more than twelve years working in schools in the UK and the Low Countries. In 2010 he takes up the post of Senior Lecturer in Language and Literacy at London Metropolitan University where he hopes to develop his academic interest in storytelling and enthuse future teachers with a love of story.

The Story Tent project came out of Alastair Daniel’s use of storytelling as a teaching strategy with children with profound emotional and behavioural difficulties. He found that storytelling (as contrasted with story-reading) provided a unique method of drawing children, who often had difficulties the imaginative play, into new worlds. For over twelve years the unique Story Tent style combined physicalisation, puppets, masks, costumes, artifacts, rhymes and songs with traditional and literary texts - students were encouraged to enjoy and participate fully in the retelling of traditional and classic tales to develop English language skills.

Alastair writes:

When I began touring with The Story Tent in 1998 I had no idea that some twelve years later I would be travelling around the UK and the Low Countries working with up to 20 000 students per year (and living abroad for four months of the year). This has been a very difficult decision as the last years have not only provided me with much joy, but also have given me the opportunity of working with many dedicated and imaginative teachers as well as confirming to myself (and hopefully to others) that the young people of the digital age can still be enthralled by something as simple as the story told. In the end, of course, it is young people themselves who provide the principle reward for anyone working in education and their openness to sharing story as play, from five year olds to sixth formers about to go to university has been an inspiration from the first time I began a tale with the words “This is the story of... and this is how I will tell it” to my last story when I finish with “That was the story of... and that was how you and I told it.”

To everyone with whom I have worked I would like to express my thanks and hope that you will continue to give storytelling its vital place in school.

Alastair Daniel