The Shakespeare in Schools Manifesto says:

 

DO IT ON YOUR FEET
The S4K way:

Put on your own version of our five star shows as your next school play!

All S4K shows are available for your school or group to put on. This is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to mount a full scale Shakespeare musical of your own, and with the Teacher Pack, photocopying licenses, music and CDs all included - it couldn't be easier!

Do it in your feet.jpg"Many students who find Shakespeare boring say that sitting at desks and reading the plays, rather than performing them, is one of the main frustrations.

The best classroom experience we can offer is one which allows young people to approach a Shakespeare play as actors do – as an ensemble, using active, exploratory, problem-solving methods to develop a greater understanding and enjoyment of the plays.

Some of the most successful Shakespeare classrooms we have seen are ones where:

  • Young people are up on their feet, moving around, saying the text aloud, exploring the feelings and ideas that emerge
  • There is a focus on physical and emotional, as well as intellectual, responses to the text
  • An edited text is used to allow students to gain confidence with language
  • Active approaches are used to inform and test critical analysis
  • Pupils investigate a range of interpretive choices in the text and negotiate these with their teacher
  • Drama techniques are used to explore language, meaning, character and motivation
  • Understanding of the play is assessed through a combination of creative oral and written responses

These active, theatre-based approaches acknowledge the importance of kinaesthetic learning – learning through doing and feeling.

By engaging directly and physically with the words and rhythms of the text, complex thoughts and language start to make sense to young people and invite instinctive and personal responses.

Active techniques ensure that experiences of Shakespeare are inherently inclusive since they embrace all age ranges and abilities.

They also mean that Shakespeare is collectively owned as participants collaborate and build a shared understanding of the play - with the whole class becoming ‘co-owners’ and ‘doers’.

Active work promotes a way of engaging with Shakespeare as a playwright who still speaks to young people from all cultures and backgrounds."

Schools that Stand up for Shakespeare:
  • Ensure that introductory teaching of Shakespeare is rooted in active, exploratory approaches.
  • Maintain these approaches with older students.
  • Give young people the chance to create their own performances of Shakespeare’s plays.

THE S4K WAY


The kinaesthetic (ie “doing it”) approach is at the heart of “the S4K Way”

Our PUT ON A PLAY PACKS are the ideal way to give young people the chance to act in their own performances of Shakespeare plays at school – using our unique blend of original text and easy-to-understand dialogue in an enjoyable Musical Theatre format, this is “Shakespeare everyone can understand”.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT OUR “PUT ON A PLAY PACKS” by clicking here

READ EXTRACTS AND LISTEN TO SOME S4K TRACKS IN OUR TRYZONE

CHOOSE From Hamlet, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night and Macbeth.

 

 
What they say about us:

S4K HAMLET: "We took our Year 5s, all 197 of them, to see S4K Hamlet at the Journal Tyne Theatre in Newcastle. It was the most amazing spectacle I think I have ever seen. The kids were transfixed from start to finish. I would even say it was better than the RSC production I saw a couple of years ago! All the kids talked about on the way back to school was how great it was and when were we going to see another one. I cannot praise the actors and other people involved in putting on this production highly enough. I loved it so much and can't wait or the next one. Congratulations and well done to everyone." Middle School, Newcastle