Welcome to
The Story Camp Experience
Our unique story tents provide a special place for children to Chat, Play and Read
Welcome to Story Camp
As experienced teachers we know how much children love to play in special cosy places and exciting hidden spaces. This inspired us to create a unique and wonderful experience to foster a love of books and stories in schools or for a unique children's party or celebration event.
We can come to your school, home or venue and do all the setting up and styling, then return to pack up and collect all of the itemised supplies, or you may wish to undertake collection, setup and return of equipment yourselves.
Book your 2022 dates now:
A non-refundable deposit of £100 will secure your chosen date.
All bookings are subject to availability.
All prices are subject to change, however, prices quoted at time of booking will be honoured.
Our Tents
A little bit about us
We are qualified teachers with considerable early years’ experience – both in teaching and strategic management.
One of the things we most miss about having a classroom, is the time we invested into setting up an enabling environment, which was visually irresistible to the children.
Having also spent a lot of time in the US, we were inspired by the creativity and available resourcing we saw there, and decided to set up a small business which combined our 2 passions of early years education and stuff! What EY teacher doesn’t love stuff? Add a love of books into the mix and Story Camp was borne out of this enthusiasm.
The current focus on 'closing the word gap' with its emphasis on early reading and fostering a love of books supplied the impetus for us to begin.
When the Covid 19 pandemic arrived it hampered our progress. We have used the time to diversify and consider other ways we can use the tents such as at weddings and for children’s parties, but The Story Camp Experience is our flag ship and has to remain the starting point for our new and exciting venture.
We hope your children will enjoy The Story Camp Experience.
Sheena Wright (B.Ed)
Sheena has worked in education for over 40 years undertaking a variety of roles in that time. Her early career began as a nursery teacher in 2 London boroughs before moving to the west country and teaching across the whole primary range. Her interest in early years also led her to teach Early Childhood studies at FE colleges and ITT. Sheena was approached by Devon LA to set up and then went on to lead a team of Early Year’s Advisors. She left this role as Lead Advisor to work independently and enable more time back into school. In order to maintain a broad overview of early year’s education she currently manages her time between part time LA work and a school improvement role in EYFS across a number of MAT’s. This flexibility allows her to combine her love of being with children in the classroom with the strategic oversight as a Head of EY service. Her ambition for wanting children to have the best start to their education journey has been the momentum for her remaining in early years for so long. Story Camp has been borne out of a passion for providing exciting, child friendly environments, which as well as fostering a love of reading, allows children to enjoy being children through their conversations and play, use of their imaginations and the development of their own ideas.
Sheila O'Donnell
(BA Hon. PGCE. Dip Ed. NPQH)
Sheila is a fully qualified and highly experienced teacher, leader and manager specialising in both early years and primary education for nearly 40 years. She was deputy headteacher in a large school in SW London where she led the early years department for many years before moving into advisory work for Merton LA, and then Dorset LA, where she set up and led a large team of early years advisors providing support to childcare settings, pre-schools and schools across the county. She is currently part of a school improvement team providing challenge and support across the early years, primary and secondary phases. Developing an interest in and a love of reading is a key focus of her work, Sheila is really passionate about the early years, particularly in developing children’s early communication, language and literacy skills and she has led many national initiatives and projects to further this in Dorset. Sheila loves reading to children and to see them enjoying using books, discovering new information and developing and using story language and vocabulary while making up, retelling and writing their own stories.
Reading is the magic key needed to open up life-long learning and this is what we hope to nurture and develop through Story Camp.