Tales to Scale: Scaling Education in DEIS Schools

What Is Tales to Scale: Scaling Education?

Tales to Scale: Scaling Education focuses on creative engagement between Fighting Words and DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) primary and secondary schools across Ireland. We offer creative workshops and projects as a way to invite young people to tell their stories in positive spaces – whether that is in the classroom, at one of our Fighting Words centres or your local library!

Benefits Inside and Outside the Classroom

Our creative workshops are not only fun and interactive, they also support different skills useful for inside and outside the classroom! Team work, presentation, writing, confidence-building, independent creation

What can we offer your class?

• We will work with you to determine the workshop or project to suit your class

• Our workshops run from 90 minutes to two hours per session, depending on the type of workshop and/or project. 

• Our workshops are delivered by a team of Fighting Words staff and volunteer mentors who are vetted and trained, each spreading positive encouragement! 

• All creative pieces are published in Tales to Scales to celebrate young creators with the world!

Tales to Scale: Primary Schools

Our primary workshops are in two parts: group work and individual writing time. The first part of the workshop focuses on the group creating the beginning of a story together. A facilitator works with the class to develop characters, incorporating the many ideas that pop up around the room into the plot.  

The second part of the workshop allows each student to explore individual creation. Armed with paper, pencils and colours, students can either finish the group story or create something new – they can draw, write, sing - it’s completely up to them!

At the very end, there will be time to share work if the students wish, followed by positive feedback from the volunteer mentors.

After we say goodbye to the wonderful writers (your students), teachers are welcome to adopt our structures in the classroom and continue to encourage creativity.

Tales To Scale projects generally follow this structure with an overarching theme, which we can discuss with you, and are published in Tales To Scale!

Tales to Scale: Secondary Schools

The first part of the workshop emphasises small group work. The class/group is divided into smaller groups to work together to create a short piece. 

They have the option of writing:

• A short story

• A poem

• Aplay/script lyrics/rap

• A diary entry

• A news article/TV news report

• Illustrations or comics

Each group shares their creative piece with the class/group and volunteer mentors provide positive feedback.

The second part of the workshops invites each student to work individually. They can continue the group creation, or take the time to explore their own ideas.

Tales To Scale projects generally follow this structure with an overarching theme, which we can discuss with you, and are published on our website!

Is One Of Your Students a Keen Writer? Tell Them About Write Club!

In our experience, most classes have at least or two students who love to write. We encourage them to sign up to Write Club, which runs both online and in-person. 

Young people from 13-18 meet on Zoom and/or at our Dublin centre to pursue their own writing/creative projects, and to meet like-minded people. It is free of charge with regular sessions and publishing opportunities.

Our Team

Our workshops are run by teams of volunteer writing mentors, supervised by Fighting Words staff using our fun and interactive formats. Specialist workshops are delivered by experienced practitioners in a variety of fields, such as playwriting, graphic fiction, short stories and more.

All programming is focused on supporting children and young people to tell their own stories in their own voice and at their own pace. There is never a focus on spelling or grammar. The content is decided by the participants, with advice and guidance from the Fighting Words team.

Trained and Vetted Mentors

At Fighting Words, the safety of young people comes first. 

Our staff and all our volunteer mentors are subject to Garda vetting, interviews and reference checks. They are also required to attend training sessions in our workshop formats and child protection. 

While our mentors come from all walks of life, all of them are motivated by a love of working with children and young people in a creative environment and fostering creativity.

Booking a Workshop

Tales to Scale: Scaling Education is currently running projects with DEIS schools in different counties from 2023 to 2026.

Workshops can be scheduled to take place in your school, local library or one of our centres.

Contact Scaling Education Coordinator Pierina Campbell pierina@fightingwords.ie to express interest in participating in our Tales to Scale workshops and projects.

NB: Please provide your School Roll Number in your correspondence. 

More Information & Links

• Write Club - the free in-person and online club for writers in secondary school
• Transition Year Placements - Fighting Words offers placements to students in Transition Year in Dublin and Wicklow. Click here to find out more.
• Mailing List - Would you like to keep up to date with the latest Fighting Words has to offer? Complete the form below to join our school mailing list to receive news about upcoming projects and events!