Are you excited about the idea of Open the Book but don’t know where to start?
We often have schools asking us for teams to go in and do storytelling so maybe your nearest school is just waiting for a chance to have an OtB team too!
Volunteer Storytellers from one or several churches form a team that can go into their local school to do an interactive assembly/act of collective worship for about 10-15 minutes on a regular basis (preferably every week). With your support, children in your community will get the opportunity to encounter the Bible.
Churches are responsible for safely recruiting the volunteers and ensuring the local school is happy for this to happen and we have all you need to get started.
Registered Storytellers & Trainers
For first login only
Here are some ideas to get you thinking:
- Identify a co-ordinator within your church and ask them if they could read the information on this website and pray about it. Could they form a team from within your church, or a team by working with other churches? Download the relevant role descriptions on the volunteers page to help.
- Talk about Bible Storytelling and ask people to let you know if they feel called to share Bible stories in primary schools. Get everyone together to pray and talk through what is involved and form a team. Remember, it just takes an hour a week.
- Decide that your church would like to get involved and see it as a key priority.
- If you are a small church or want to join with other churches to form a team, invite a Trainer to come for an Information Session to generate interest in neighbouring parishes.
- You’ll find you will build relationships with schools that can lead to being asked to support other activities like Easter, Christmas and being involved with each other’s activities like fetes etc.
- Help advertise the need for volunteers – see our free church resources below to get people along.
- Follow the instructions on the volunteer page about what to do at each stage of the process. Storytellers need to be registered with OtB to access resources.
- We require all Storytellers to undergo the necessary safeguarding checks through their own church or denominational procedures. It is neither the role not responsibility of OtB. This may include an interview, application form, and/or a relevant DBS check.
- We recommend that all Storytellers take up safeguarding training opportunities offered by their denominations, Social Services or the school. OtB training is only a guide to help with some scenarios that Storytellers may find themselves in.
See our volunteer section for more details of how you can start a team.
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