Not long ago, I was teaching a Year 5 lesson on irreversible changes. We had looked at a lit match and discussed how the smoke particles and gases were lost in the burning process, making this an irreversible change. Next, we discussed a kettle boiling.

“Irreversible,” the pupils decided, as the gases were lost to the air.

But then I mimed the action of scooping up water and, instantly, the class began to recall something we’d learned the previous year.

“Evaporation!” someone called out.

“Is it reversible?” I asked.

“Yes. Con…condensation,” they replied.

Where did this revelation come from? My action had prompted them to remember a story I had told them when we first began learning about the water cycle, in which the processes of evaporation and condensation were personified as deities called Eva and Con, which helped water to move through the stages of the cycle.

Telling a fictional story like this might sound at odds with the principles of science, but I have been using stories to teach the subject for years now, and I am convinced that the evidence supports this method.

So, how does it work? About seven years ago, I came across the Storytelling Schools approach. This places a story at the centre of the primary English curriculum. If the story has a scientific link, then it can also be at the centre of the science curriculum. The children hear the story, then they learn to tell it. They play talking games to help them experience the story from the point of view of the characters, and they imagine what the setting and the characters might look like.

In science lessons, they learn about the science in the context of the story. Finally, pupils learn to write the story in their own way, using a shared writing method.

Evidence from small-scale trials, conducted in UK primary schools, suggests that children make good progress with their writing when the Storytelling Schools method is used.

But what about science? Could a story be the best way to make this learning stick? According to research, it seems that it could. Studies have shown that we find it easier to understand and remember stories than other forms of information, because they are psychologically privileged. If we learn curriculum content through a story, our brains will treat this information differently from an explanation of the same content on its own.

In particular, Daniel Willingham (2004) finds that, when hearing a story, we listen for causality (one event causes another), conflict (which stops the goal being reached), complications (which give the story twists and turns) and characters (who are complex). Gordon Bower (1978) suggests this may be because we have evolved as a social species, and we need to understand the emotions and intentions of other people in order for the group to remain cohesive.

Stories that include all these elements therefore seem to have a stronger effect on our ability to recall information. And there also appear to be additional learning benefits when pupils are given the opportunity to become the storytellers themselves.

When children are asked to recount the story they have learned in their own words, they are actively involved in “telling” the science. The process of forming an oral explanation requires pupils to order their ideas, forcing them to really engage with the scientific concepts.

Narrative journey

Every time I ask my class to retell a story in a role-play game, they have another chance to juggle those ideas and get them into a coherent explanation. Over the course of weeks, as we revisit the story and develop our understanding of the scientific concepts, the children’s ability to explain the science in the story develops. This is anecdotal evidence from my own classroom but there is more robust research to support the use of this kind of activity in science lessons.

For instance, Simon and Maloney (2007) write: “With properly designed activities and appropriate resources, collaborative working can facilitate the development of children’s scientific reasoning skills as they seek to justify an idea and convince others.

“Children may argue from different positions and, in presenting their reasons for a particular standpoint, they will be challenged in their own thoughts and also challenge evidence that opposes their view.”

Taking these findings on board, the combination of introducing science knowledge through storytelling, and then cementing it through oral retelling, has the potential to be a powerful approach.

But does it work in practice? My role involves teaching mostly science in key stage 2 classes throughout my school. I often teach the same children for one day a week over several years. This has given me an insight into whether or not their learning is lost or remembered.

Before I used stories, I found that, when I taught a topic, the children were able to demonstrate their understanding of it. Yet, two years later, they had forgotten it all. I wondered where their learning had gone.

One problem topic was evaporation and condensation. After two years, children often muddled the two concepts. So, I wrote the story of Eva and Con to address that problem. I teach the story in its own right first, without even using the words “evaporation” and “condensation” - just naming the characters. The story also has a song embedded in it, complete with actions, to further aid pupils’ memories.

Two weeks later, we return to the topic and conduct an experiment to demonstrate the water cycle. This is when the penny will suddenly drop. Someone will say: “It’s Eva and Con from the story!” And then the whole class will realise.

Since I started teaching about the water cycle in this way, I have found that, two years later, children remember the story and can name the processes of evaporation and condensation more reliably than they could before. Furthermore, I find that the song is the first thing that children remember. This reminds them of the story and, from there, they remember the science. So, since then, I have tried to write more songs to go with the stories.

This is only a small-scale trial that I am conducting with my own students and, as yet, I have only anecdotal evidence that teaching science through storytelling is more effective than other methods. However, this approach does seem to suit my teaching style. The children I teach respond well to it and there does seem to be more longevity to learning delivered in this way. To me, this is a very promising start to the story.

Jules Pottle is a part-time science specialist teacher at Cumnor Primary School in Oxfordshire and a trainer for Storytelling Schools. Her 2018 book, Science Fiction, Science Fact! Learning science through well-loved stories (available in two versions for children aged 5-7 and 8-12) is published by Routledge

This article originally appeared in the 8 February 2019 issue under the headline “How the magic of stories brings learning to life”