Our Lady of the Assumption RSC Associate School

Teaching Shakespeare makes children better learners

Sandgrown Shakespeare Cast 2023 

Our Lady of the Assumption are a Lead Associate School for The Royal Shakespeare Company.  We are working closely with The Grand Theatre, The RSC and other Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre schools to develop the teaching of Shakespeare.

Whilst being involved in the project, we have found that it has a significant impact on children's engagement with literacy, confidence and behaviour.

Our students have become members of the RSC Youth Advisory board, a passionate group of young people from across the country who want to ensure that the Arts thrive in education.

The young people on the YAB are a diverse group of ages, genders and ethnicities - one of their main aims is to make sure everyone’s voices are heard and acted upon, no matter who they are. They want to make a change in the world we are living in today, and to make sure the arts still thrive in the future. 

Below is a recent article from The Telegraph talking about the impact of the project:

Shakespeare gives children as young as three a confidence boost, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s director of education has said.

Exposing pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds to complex language allows them to become as eloquent as their privately educated peers, according to Jacqui O’Hanlon.

She said explained that teaching children Shakespeare from a young age “narrows the gap” between those from disadvantaged families and those from better-off households.

"No age is too young to start learning about the Bard", she said, adding that some schools begin teaching toddlers who are still in nursery.

“They are learning new words all the time, every day. Shakespeare is just a new set of really gorgeous, delicious intriguing words,” Ms O’Hanlon told The Sunday Telegraph.

“You ignite a curiosity about language. And that is a fantastic skillset, particularly for people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

“It narrows the gap. If you go to an independent school what you will be surrounded by is a group of young people who are utterly confident in communication. That confidence and communication is what Shakespeare opens the door to.”

The RSC has supported the teaching of Shakespeare in with over 100 schools around the country for over a decade, encouraging “rehearsal room” techniques such as reading the plays aloud and acting them out.

Ms O’Hanlon has long suspected that the ramifications that learning Shakespeare has for disadvantaged children are far reaching.

Now she feels that the benefits of Shakespeare are indisputable after seeing the results of a piece of research by Warwick University.

The study, commissioned by the RSC, was a series of interviews with teachers at around 100 schools where Shakespeare is taught to disadvantaged children using the rehearsal room method, either at primary or secondary school.

“What we wanted to do was to find out from a range of teachers what Shakespeare enabled for their students,” Ms O’Hanlon said.

“Anecdotally we kept getting this very powerful testimony about the dramatic impact that Shakespearean language had on a child’s confidence, on their communication skills and on their language development, both spoken and written.”

Researchers found that 95 per cent teachers said students were more willing to contribute ideas and opinions in lessons.

The same proportion said that learning Shakespeare impacts on children’s self- confidence, and over 80 per cent said that disengaged boys particularly benefited.

A further 83.9 per cent of teachers said the work had a positive impact on students’ spoken and written language.

Ms O'Hanlon said anyone who claims that children from difficult backgrounds will not understand or will not relate to Shakespeare is being “enormously patronising”.

“What we see is access to Shakespeare really boosts children language skills,” she said.

“It is complex, difficult and if we give children the tools to unlock the complexity and access the rich beautiful work they feel very diff about themselves.

“Teachers say it really extends their horizons and raises aspirations.”

Why Learning Shakespeare And Active Learning Helps

“An actor once described the rehearsal room to be a ‘place of possibilities.’ I think that’s also a wonderful description to apply to a classroom and it’s what we hope to create with our associate schools.”
— • Jacqui O’Hanlon RSC Director of Learning

Active learning strategies and rehearsal room techniques – helping make learning stick
The practical approaches that theatres use to explore plays can be used very effectively to deepen children’s learning. These approaches allow the children to develop a greater understanding, explore their ideas and be confident to use them in their learning.  Through these practical approaches the children develop a deeper understanding and a confidence to apply their understanding to their work. We are a Lead Associate School for The RSC and are working with other local schools to develop these strategies and the teaching of Shakespeare to children. The exploration of Shakespeare’s plays and language can greatly enhance the cultural capital that we provide for our learners. Please explore the RSC learning zone to start your journey.

Time to Act

We are delighted to share some exciting news with you. Mrs Ormerod and year 4 has been selected to take part in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s research project, Time to Act. With funding from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, the RSC is working with teachers and pupils across England to assess the impact of rehearsal room techniques for improving pupils’ reading, writing, and perceptions of themselves as learners.

  • We believe that an arts-rich education is the best way to prepare young people for life beyond school: unlocking potential, contributing to health and happiness, and fostering vital skills for life and work. The RSC has an established learning programme and evidence that demonstrates the value of using rehearsal room approaches to Shakespeare—the same techniques used by our actors and directors—with students of all ages and abilities. We will be working with 70 Year 5 classes across England to gather more evidence of that impact.

  • Two RSC Research Fellows, Dr Matthew Collins and Dr Lynsey McCulloch, are leading the project. Mrs Ormerod will carry out the research in the classroom. She will be trained by experienced RSC practitioners in rehearsal room techniques for teaching Shakespeare, deliver sessions in class, and assess pupils’ responses.

  • Mrs Ormerod will deliver class sessions that use these approaches between April and May 2023. These will take place during the regular school day, as part of the English curriculum. Participating pupils will not miss out on any other educational content.

    In April 2023, pupils will take some simple exercises administered by teachers or teaching assistants to assess language skills and pupils’ perceptions of themselves as learners. Pupils will undertake the same exercises in May 2023, with the addition of a short writing exercise. Researchers will then be able to compare pupils’ responses before and after the programme, and with the responses of pupils in other schools who have not experienced the programme.

  • The RSC conducts research in accordance with the highest standards of research integrity. As such, we comply with regulations and legislation that govern the conduct of research, including data protection law. Any personal information collected in this research project will be anonymised before findings are shared or published. Data on participants will be retained for as long as it is required for the research project and no longer. You can find the RSC’s Privacy Policy here.

    For this project, the RSC is collaborating with OxEd & Assessment. OxEd is a University of Oxford spinout company and producer of educational assessment apps. You can find OxEd’s Privacy Statement here.

  • Children will benefit from classroom activities delivered by teachers trained by the RSC, one of the world’s leading performing arts organisations. Pupils will also help evidence the value of an arts-rich education.

  • The RSC plans to publish a report on the outcomes of this research project in 2023/24. This report will be shared with parents alongside participating schools, teachers, and pupils. We hope to share this report with policy makers and findings will be shared with other academic researchers through publications and at conferences.

Time to Act: Evaluating the Impact of Royal Shakespeare Company Pedagogy on Literacy and Academic Self-Concept in Primary Schools has been reviewed and approved by the RSC Research Ethics Panel.