TALES-A Community Storytelling Project in Ballymun

As part of community outreach St Patrick’s College was commissioned to evaluate TALES, a community storytelling project in Ballymun, Dublin 11. TALES focuses on 10 year-olds and is an initiative of  axis: Ballymun. All seven National schools in Ballymun are involved.   Professional tellers develop storytelling skills with pupils over six weeks. The purpose is to develop oracy, democratic decision making and lifelong learning of the pupils. The result is a group of children who are actively developing their own stories and telling them in their own communities. After four years of successful working, there was need to determine the value and future direction of TALES. An issue that emerged was that, as there was no model of arts evaluation available,one needed to be developed using hybrid methods. The process was evaluated for axis by Colm Hefferon, (Lecturer in Drama, St Patrick's College), using a variety of approaches, to explore the impact of the project on pupils learning.  Learning ­ improved significantly on a range of curricular, personal, social, artistic, cultural, lifelong learning and decision-making domains. The results were evaluated using the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Logic Model which is neither an arts model nor terminal evaluation model, rather it is a community involvement approach that is dialogic and developmental, providing evaluation that is accessible  to key stakeholders. The Evaluation was nominated for the President’s award of DCU.

The evaluation report is published by axis:Ballymun and Education Disadvantage Centre, St Patrick's College.

 

 

 

 

Last Updated: Friday December 02 2011