RSC offers online resources to home learners and teachers

Photo credit: Sam Allard

The RSC is offering a variety of free resources for home learners and teachers currently teaching online.

Tales From Shakespeare features fresh retellings of six Shakespeare’s plays by celebrated author Michael Morpurgo. Aimed at ages 6 to 16, the plays and their characters are relocated to contemporary settings. The stories are told by Morpurgo, alongside members of the RSC acting company. The six retold stories are Twelfth Night, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest. All stories are free for UK schools, and a new tale is available every Friday at 10am until 5 February.

RSC Activity Toolkits, which have been designed especially for home learning, take students deeper into the world of the plays. They include 15-minute tasks that can be completed at home or as part of a remote lesson. They are available for six of Shakespeare’s most popular plays including Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Merchant of Venice. The toolkits are supported by videos of RSC actors completing the activities from home.

Back in 2019 and 2020, the RSC broadcast live lessons of Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth into schools. These lessons, exploring the characters, themes and language of the plays, are now available to view at any time. They feature contributions from RSC directors and actors, including RSC deputy director Erica Whyman, and actors Niamh Cusack (Lady Macbeth) and Karen Fishwick (Juliet).

Other resources available include Homework Help and the Shakespeare Learning Zone. In Homework Help, students were invited to send the RSC any questions they had about Shakespeare and his plays via #RSCHomeworkHelp. They received hundreds of questions and students can see the answers in video responses from actors such as David Bradley, Niamh Cusack, Paapa Essiedu, David Tennant, David Threlfall, alongside RSC Artistic Director Gregory Doran. In the Shakespeare Learning Zone, students can find an interactive catalogue of games, videos and galleries. 

There are also a large number of resources covering 30 of Shakespeare’s plays available for teachers.

RSC Director of Education, Jacqui O’Hanlon, said: “We know that this next phase of national lockdown is incredibly challenging for students, teachers and families. It can also be isolating and demotivating for many young people. So as children and families adjust to their new virtual classrooms, we have created a range of different resources designed to stimulate their creativity and imagination and support their wellbeing.

“Members of our acting company have developed activity toolkits that set challenges for students to complete on well-known plays, from creating plot storyboards to designing sets to performing key speeches and scenes.  Our Shakespeare Learning Zone contains lots of interactive games and quizzes for students to enjoy as well as video content featuring RSC actors performing scenes and speeches and talking about their approach to playing different characters. Michael Morpurgo’s Tales from Shakespeare are free to schools in the UK, with a new tale being released every Friday at 10am until 5 February.  Schools can sign up to register and the content is available on demand for teachers and students, at home or in school, for 3 months.”

All resources are available via the RSC website here.