We have worked in partnership with the British Council to create the Shakespeare Lives schools pack to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death in 2016.
Sent to all UK schools earlier this year, the pack celebrates Shakespeare as a writer who still speaks for all people and nations, addressing big questions and themes about the human experience and what it means to be a citizen in the twenty-first century while also introducing theatre-based approaches to learning.
We have also created a series of practical films with the British Council exploring How To Teach Shakespeare using RSC rehearsal room approaches. These short introductions accompany the activities in the pack and focus on:
Creating the Right Environment
Establishing the World
Telling the Story
Discovering and Understanding the Characters
Getting to Grips with the Language
The activities in the pack encourage teachers and pupils to engage with some of the key issues, themes and ideas in Shakespeare’s plays, and to explore the ways they remain relevant and current in our lives today, wherever we are in the world.
Specially designed to encourage learning across the curriculum, the resource is split into five key themes;
- Leadership and Power
- Family and Relationships
- Identity and Equality
- Fate and Destiny
- Justice and Rules
Within each themed section you will find a wide range of activities for pupils aged 7-14. These can be used as starting points in individual lessons or as elements of a cross-curricular project, which could be carried out with a partner school overseas.
The Shakespeare Lives Schools’ Pack can be downloaded FREE from schoolsonline.britishcouncil.org