Josh has been a storyteller since 1998, originally working with the Horniman Museum in SE London, as part of the Education and Outreach team. While continuing to perform frequently at the Horniman, he is also a regular storyteller at WOMAD, has performed at the V&A, for the Story of London Festival, Bath Literature Festival, the Wallace Collection and visits schools nationally for storytelling performance and creative and literacy based activities and workshops.

Josh is co-founder of TheWholeStory, who provide storytelling-based workshops and training to Business and the Museum & Heritage sector, as a tool to understand, develop and communicate ideas and actions.

Josh has worked with the education teams of the Horniman Museum, the Geffrey Museum, the V&A Museum of Childhood, the National Maritime Museum and the National Trust. Whilst providing training and INSET for Islington and Westminster LEAs, he has worked within schools through A New Direction (formerly Creative Partnerships), and visits many schools and nurseries across London, the South East and beyond for storytelling performance and activities.

For schools Josh gives dynamic, fun and interactive storytelling performance, with follow-on activities and workshops to inspire creativity and imagination, to support and encourage speaking, listening and writing.

INSET, workshops and training for teachers offer practical applications and approaches to storytelling, to enhance communication and creative skills in both teachers and children.

School Visits:

Storytelling Performance and Follow-on Activities:

Josh tells exciting traditional folktales from around the world, and his performances vary in length and content depending on age, group size and required outcome:

Nursery and Reception performances last 20 - 30 minutes, are highly interactive and include helping to build Josh’s stories, hearing stories with visual aids of picture-books and taking part in popular songs and nursery rhymes.

KS1 typically last 30-minutes, and can take place either on the classroom carpet or in the hall. Following the telling of a couple of animated, exciting and engaging animal stories, children often enjoy drawing their favourite characters and moments from the stories with their teacher.

Year 3+4 is 45-minutes of exciting trickster tales and creation myths from many cultures. This can take place either on the classroom carpet or in the hall, and is a great model for the pupils to experience narrative structure and descriptive, detailed content.

Year 5+6 have their own set of stories, uniquely chosen for this age range: these can either be told as 45-60 minutes of performance or up to 90-minutes with follow-on workshops. The workshop combined with the performance, explores the difference between spoken and written English and models and highlights the advantage of including sensory descriptive detail within narratives. The workshops conclude with the pupils becoming an Author, each writing their own ending to a folktale, before a few of them become Storytellers to share their endings with their classmates.

All stories are chosen to ensure they are appropriate to each audience, from Nursery to Year 8.

Typically in a day it is possible to have 3 sessions in the morning and 2 after lunch, Josh does his best to fill the day for you, to see as many forms as he can, without losing quality.

Josh prefers to see individual forms in their classrooms, but can accommodate groups of up to 60 in the hall if required.

“ The acting and facial expressions were fantastic. The children were completely engaged in the stories. It was like the characters were alive in front of them. They loved it.”
Teacher following Storytelling Performance

“ The children were captivated by the stories Josh told and loved his animated humour.”
Teacher following Storytelling Performance

“ A very enjoyable day. I can still smell the rotting eggs!”
Teacher following Storytelling Performance

“Many, many thanks for a fab day of storytelling! The kids are still talking about it and really enjoyed it.”
Literacy coordinator following Storytelling performance and activities

“All the children were hooked from beginning to end..”
Teacher following Storytelling Performance

“Very engaging facilitators who were able to challenge and to create an atmosphere of trust.”
Heather Everndon, Specialist Schools and Academies Trust

“Josh was fantastic. He really motivated and inspired the students.”
Teacher following Storytelling Performance

“Some pupils who NEVER participate were drawn into the group and performed – fantastic. The pupils improved their social skills, awareness and confidence and during the workshop were interested, buoyant, lovely and active.”
Head of Year after activities for Anti-Bullying Day

“I work with younger children and will now use stories to open up lines of communication.”
INSET Participant

“Very friendly people, who made me feel at ease and knew what they were talking about.”
Early Years Workshop participant, Westminster

“I have been reminded of the importance and strength of storytelling and how widely it can impact on learning”
INSET Participant

None available