RSC Launches Innovative Curriculum to Bring Shakespeare to Life for UK Students
A new, free online platform from the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) aims to transform shakespeare education in UK state schools, moving away from rote memorization and towards active performance and engagement with the Bard’s works. The curriculum, launching Wednesday, provides over 2,000 resources designed to unlock the power of Shakespeare for a new generation of students.
The initiative responds to a long-held concern that shakespeare can feel inaccessible to young people. As one educator noted, “Generally we are all terrified of Shakespeare.” But the RSC’s approach,honed through years of classroom experience,seeks to dismantle that fear by treating plays not as static literature,but as “living,breathing texts for performance.”
The program was piloted at Ormiston Bushfield Academy in Peterborough, where a Year 10 English class recently participated in a workshop focused on Macbeth. The scene unfolded on a dreary, wet afternoon, with students initially quiet and reserved. However, a simple rehearsal-style game of “pass the click [of fingers]” quickly energized the room, culminating in students performing key lines from Act 1, scene 7 – a pivotal moment where Macbeth wrestles with his conscience while being relentlessly urged to action by lady Macbeth – with surprising gusto.
Lines like “Art thou afeard…?” and Lady Macbeth’s chilling pronouncements – “I have given suck…,” “plucked my nipple,” and “boneless gums” – resonated through the classroom, not as daunting text, but as powerful dramatic utterances. The focus on performance, rather than simply reading, proved transformative.
The RSC’s curriculum is an online platform offering teachers and students access to video extracts from RSC rehearsals and past productions, alongside activity-packed lesson plans. It will initially focus on Macbeth, with Romeo and Juliet slated to follow in early 2026, and two additional plays added each academic year.
“The RSC can’t get actors into every school in the country,” explained a leading figure within the company, “So this is a way of getting Shakespeare – a living, breathing thing – into schools to excite kids.”
Early feedback suggests the approach is already yielding positive results. A 15-year-old student, who typically prefers rap music, described the workshop as “a nice break, doing something different.” Another student, age 14, added, “I think some people don’t like Shakespeare becuase they don’t understand promptly what a lot of it means, but if you listen to it a little bit, even if you don’t fully understand it, you can grasp what’s going on.”
The initiative has garnered support from prominent figures in the acting world. David Tennant, renowned for his role as Dr. Who and a recent critically acclaimed performance as Macbeth, emphasized that Shakespeare “should be experienced, engaged with and performed, not just read from a page.” Judi Dench, a veteran of countless Shakespearean roles, echoed this sentiment, stating that in the rehearsal room, “we don’t have all the answers on day one, rather we explore the play and its language, peeling back its layers and playing with different interpretations to find a way of telling the story for today.”
Dench believes the curriculum will successfully “bring the spirit of collaboration, inquiry and revelation from the rehearsal room into classrooms up and down the country, inspiring and engaging young minds.” The RSC’s new curriculum represents a significant investment in ensuring that Shakespeare remains relevant and accessible for
