An Escape Room and Lots of Books….A Story Project Summer!
The summer is always a really nice time at The Story Project. We work flexibly during the holidays so that we can all spend extra time with our friends and family or simply have the occasional lie-in!
We miss our lovely schools, but with less emails landing in our inbox in August, it gives us space to think big! We review the previous year, plan for the next and strategize about our future plans. This year was no exception. We met for the day at a delightful co-working space in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. Here we spent the morning thinking about our priorities for 2026-2027, and we’re already so excited for what is to come!
During our team days we make sure to spend social time together too, so at midday we headed out for lunch and a mooch around the local bookshops. As expected, they didn’t disappoint! Harrogate has a great selection of bookshops from independent stores, to high street chains and a charity book shop too.
After a few more hours planning the next 12 months, we embarked on some team building! The task – to complete an Escape Room in 60 minutes. We did it in, drum roll please, 61 minutes! We’re not sure if we should be happy with that or not. It was fascinating to see our skills come together as a team and even though we might not quite have beaten the challenge, we did have a great time.
The summer also gives us time to make important updates to our resources. This year we worked on making our PPTs more dyslexia friendly, as well as adding key vocab slides and emotional literacy images. We can’t wait to share these updates with our schools!
Like many people during August, we all took some annual leave so that we could start the new academic year feeling refreshed and (most importantly) caught up on our TBR book piles!
Fiona headed to the Peak District for 4 nights of camping. With two young children, there was little room for reading however she did catch up in following weeks.
She finally jumped on the bandwagon and read ‘A Court of Thorn and Roses’ by Sarah J. Maas which she found both frustrating and enthralling. ‘The Wishing Game’ by Meg Shaffer was a fun, easy read with a book-led story line that was perfect for reading on the sofa with a cuppa. Finally, she started ‘The Naked Light’ by Bridget Collins, an eerie gothic romance by one of her favourite authors of all time (check out ‘The Binding’, it is incredible!).
Laura was the envy of the team and jetted off to beautiful Canada. We loved keeping up with her gorgeous Canadian bookshop photos in the our Whatsapp group. She even visited the impressive Vancouver Public Library, exploring the children’s section for the next great Story Project title!
She enjoyed lots of books over the summer too, with her favourite being ‘Not a Happy Family’ by Shari Lapena. It was one she bought in the charity book shop in Harrogate during our team day. An easy read with lots of twists and turns to keep you guessing right to the end, perfect for the summer!
Following the team day, which saw Olivia drive from Surrey all the way to Yorkshire, she continued her journey North by visiting Scotland for a week. She fulfilled a lifelong bucket list dream of using a library ladder, channeling her inner ‘Belle’ from Beauty and the Beast. She also read a number of fantastic books, including…
‘Clear’ by Carys Davies, which was recommended by a bookshop owner in Harrogate, about a man who is sent by landlords to evict a lone islander from his home. The book was very gripping and unexpected.
‘Dusk’ by Robbie Arnott, about a pair of siblings who decide to follow a bounty for a puma in Tasmania. It was a surprisingly tender book with some beautiful moments.
Olivia also spent some time at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, watching a play called ‘The Next Chapter’. It was about a novelist who is trying to write a sequel to her best selling debut but is having a lot of push back from the main character in the story (who has come to life!). The play is set as a counselling session between the two of them.
Now it is September, the team are all back home and back to work! We are excited to get going on another fantastic year of The Story Project. As ever, please get in touch with us if you have any questions about your membership or about joining us!
You can contact us on info@story-project.co.uk
