If you can't get to Stratford-upon-Avon, we can bring our work to you. We can run an INSET course at a venue of your choice, anywhere in the country for up to 25 staff. Although we can come to you, you may prefer to bring a group to Stratford-upon-Avon where we will provide a venue and arrange the day for you.
An outreach day offers an ideal way to build the skills of a whole staff or can be a powerful focus for bringing specialist teachers together across a local area.
You can choose from a wide range of courses to suit your particular needs. These range from Early Years to A-level and are adaptable to challenge teachers with different levels of experience and confidence in teaching Shakespeare, including those with none.
We can bring any of the following courses to you:
These courses feature popular texts such as Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice and The Tempest.
We can also include other Shakespeare texts to support your particular needs and interests.
Outreach cost »
How to book »
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Teaching Shakespeare
In partnership with the University of Warwick, we have developed ground-breaking online resources and post-graduate accredited courses for teachers to transform your classroom experience of Shakespeare.
For more information, visit www.teachingshakespeare.ac.uk.
Introducing Shakespeare in the Early Years and Key Stage 1
Core texts: A Midsummer Night's Dream and King Lear
This course will give you the confidence and strategies to develop drama in your classroom using Shakespeare's plays and characters as a starting point for creative exploration. It focuses on ways to fire children's imagination through multi-sensory environments and storytelling techniques, to engage them in the feelings and dilemmas of the characters.
Teacher's Comment 2010
'I learned how much fun it is to work this way, and loved the many skills that the children would use in deciding why a certain item would be important, where it should be placed, literacy skills, speaking and listening. Lots of ideas to take back and run with almost straightaway.'
Introducing Shakespeare at Key Stage 2
Core texts: The Tempest and Romeo and Juliet
This day offers you starting points for teaching Shakespeare and will encourage you to get your class on their feet speaking the language of the plays with confidence, while developing skills in working together. Through a focus on key moments and characters from The Tempest and Romeo and Juliet the course will explore how your teaching can develop children's ability to empathise, see different points of view and connect it to their own lives.
Teacher's comment 2010
'I learned not to be afraid, but confident in bringing Shakespeare alive; how easy it was to have everyone participating, how to access individual talent and, at the same time, collaborate.'
Inspiring writing through Shakespeare at Key Stage 2
Core texts: Hamlet and A Midsummer Night's Dream
This course models how to motivate and inspire children to write through an active engagement with Shakespeare's language, his characters and the powerful dilemmas and extreme situations in which he places them. It will show you how to build tension and sequence drama in such a way that it creates a compelling need for children to write in a range of styles, both formal and informal.
Teacher's Comment 2010
'All the modelling and references to classroom management were useful. I learned how to decode Shakespeare. All the drama activities, which lead seamlessly to writing, are very useful.'
Teaching The RSC Shakespeare Toolkit for Teachers (for Key Stage 2/3)
Core texts: Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet
This course will support your teaching of Shakespeare by focussing on selected material from each of the three plays featured in The RSC Shakespeare Toolkit for Teachers. The day aims to give you the confidence to use the strategies and teach the extended sequences in the book in your class the next day.
The day will include:
• Modelling of the lessons
(with you as an active participant to experience the material before you teach it)
• Discussion on how to use the Teachers' Toolkit
• Establishing the right classroom environment for active approaches
If you book this course on an Outreach basis, you will receive one free copy of book, The RSC Shakespeare Toolkit for Teachers.
Active Teaching of Shakespeare at Key Stage 3
Core texts: Macbeth and The Tempest
This course will engage you in active approaches to teaching Shakespeare and so develop your confidence and skills to use them in the classroom. It will focus on strategies and lesson sequences that will encourage students to make interpretive choices by seeing a play from different characters' points of view and exploring the meaning of the language. The day will include reflection on using these approaches to capture evidence of learning which can be integrated into the ongoing assessment of pupils' reading at Key Stage 3.
Teacher's Comment 2010
'I learned how to focus on character motivation, to find relevance for students in today's society. The focus on language was great for potential written outcomes. Fun, practical and inclusive.'
Active Teaching of Shakespeare at Key Stage 4/5
Core text: Hamlet and Othello
This course will offer you active approaches to teaching Shakespeare which challenge and support students to improve their attainment and achievement. The focus of the work will be on exploring strategies that enable students to make personal, interpretive choices through a deep engagement with Shakespeare's language and develop skills in textual analysis. While all strategies are transferable to other texts the focus will be on Hamlet and Othello and the day will provide time for reflection and discussion on using these approaches to meet the requirements of different exam boards.
Outreach cost
Full day £875 (£850 for RSC Education members) which typically runs from 9.30am - 3.30pm and includes all our expenses and resources. This can work out as little as £35 per person!
Each participant will also receive a set of high quality resources featuring all the strategies and texts used during the day to support their teaching.
How to book
If you would like to know more about how we might work with you or want to make a booking please call 01789 272527 or contact us via email: education@rsc.org.uk
Please note we are unable to run workshops for students on an outreach basis, visit Workshops and events for students for more information.
RSC Education Membership
For just £18 per year, your school can become an RSC Education Member which gives all staff a range of benefits including priority booking for tickets, discounts for education activities and special Members events. Find out more »