How we Quality Assure and Develop our Resources

At The Story Project, its really important to us that our resources are:

We do this so that schools have expertly crafted lessons for their children, supporting effective teaching and inspiring learning. As one recent new school said, “you can tell the resources are written by teachers, for teachers” which is the biggest compliment we could receive!

All resources are created by our team, using our years of experience and knowledge from the classroom and research.

Research Backed and Teacher Led

The Story Project in its current form has also been heavily influenced by Laura Morgan, our Education Lead, who has used her years of primary teaching, leadership and school support to refine and develop further aspects of our resources.

Supercharging our Programme from the Outside-In.

We are dedicated to making a programme of the highest quality, which is why we’re always making improvements and using our internal strengths as a team. However, we want to go one step further and ensure that this quality can be observed and strengthened by voices outside of our organisation too.

It’s why we devote lots of time to gathering feedback. Whether its our training resources, end-of-unit class feedback or focus groups with PSHE Leads; we listen, learn and implement changes based on what teachers and children need. This process repeats every half-term via our ‘Lesson 6 feedback’; a valuable piece of work (that we also share with school leaders for their own monitoring and evaluation) that creates a cyclical internal QA process.

Strengthening our programme also needs the contributions of experts in relevant fields and externally validated results. This process, of more formal QA, is carefully planned to ensure maximum impact. Here is how we do it…

Externally Validating Our Impact

Thanks to funding from Shine Trust, our programme in Bradford is being externally analyzed by ImpactEd, an organisation that specialises in research and evaluation of education organisations. Their initial findings, from 2024, showed that our programme is making improvements to children’s emotional regulation and understanding of wellbeing, while teacher’s felt more confident teaching sensitive topics. You can read the report here.

Their recommendations were next steps that we had already begun working on, which meant we could swiftly make improvements. A key suggestion was the introduction of more flexibility for teachers and one-page lesson plans. We are delighted that we were able to implement these changes in the 24/25 academic year. ImpactEd’s final report is due to be published early 2026.

We also keep a close eye on our members’ Ofsted reports, and seeing mention of brilliant PSHE curriculums and Personal Development plans is always a joy to behold! We know that lots of work goes in to this, particularly for PD plans, that goes beyond our programme. However, to know we have played a part supports additional QA. It has also served as inspiration for the creation of our Ofsted Guide and upcoming SIAMs and Catholic Inspection documents.

Our Quality Assurance Process

When it comes to external consultants, the first step is to find the right person; it has to be an expert professional who has real experience of the classroom and the curriculum. Somebody who understands our values, ethos and the aims of our programme. We research and read and chat with colleagues in the field to make sure we’ve done our due diligence.

Then its on to the fun bit – sharing our resources with our chosen consultant and listening to their careful feedback. This feedback is gold dust! It means we can work collaboratively to make changes to our programme, securing its continued growth and precision.

Having the additional expertise of external consultancy means that we are given the opportunity for friendly-challenge during developments to the programme; a valuable process that betters our knowledge and ultimately improves TSP’s offer.

PSHE Consultancy and The Story Project

We recently worked PSHE consultant and education writer, Lucy Marcovitch (lucyeducation.co.uk). Lucy has over 30 years experience as a writer, educator and leader on national education policy. She first saw The Story Project many moons ago when it was originally in development. Since then, the programme has gone from strength to strength and this was one of the first things Lucy noticed.

“Using story and picture books has always been a powerful way to help children understand their emotions, empathise with others and make sense of the world around them. The Story Project is the ideal resource to enable this within PSHE lessons. It uses a range of engaging, diverse and inclusive books, combined with flexible lesson plans and comprehensive teacher guidance to support a sensitive but also fun and engaging approach for all year groups. It is a lovely resource, and would be an asset to any school’s PSHE curriculum!” (Lucy Marcovitch, PSHE Consultant)

Some of the elements she highlighted as particular strengths include:

• There is extensive safe teaching and learning guidance provided, both in lessons and as ‘Tricky Topic Guides’
• The clear signposting to Ground Rules creates a safe environment for discussion
• The blog provides additional book recommendations for current topics
• The supporting documentation, including objective tracker, is very useful
• The lesson content is fresh, positive and active
• The setting activities are a real positive
• The monitoring and evaluation documents and curriculum information are invaluable

We see our programme not as a static curriculum, but as an ever-evolving and improving piece of work. We delight in making it the best it can be. With a team who have all worked in schools previously, we know how important it is to get it right. So, we have also taken on board aspects that needed some attention. For example, following Lucy’s suggestions, we have:

• Addressed some website snags
• Completed a review of age-appropriate language in one of our units
• Completed a review and made small changes to a few key lessons

These changes are now reflected in updated resources in our membership area. We hope you enjoy them!

Looking to the Future…

About The Story Project

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