ARTS AWARD Assembly corner
Living Shakespeare: Students from The Virtual College get to experience what it is like walking out onto the stage at London’s Globe Theatre (main image), while Windsor School Shakespeare Challenge students admire the set of Macbeth from their seats in the gallery (below)
they saw the play performed live and the words and characters brought to life through the sets, costumes, drama, acting and music. Shakespeare Challenge also encourages links between
literacy and expressive arts within our curriculum. As part of the challenge we ran in-house sessions working with our students on Twelfth Night. These helped the students to develop an understanding of Shakespeare and his language through a variety of activities, including creating still images to represent the relationships and themes of the play, reading the script, acting out scenes, and taking part in discussions and games. The young people reacted extremely positively to
working with the original text like this. It was almost like “code-breaking” and they really enjoyed taking on something they did not really understand at first and using a variety of strategies to study and engage with Shakespeare’s words. This year, now the Shakespeare Challenge has
been made available across the country, we are hoping to carry out several activities to aid our student’s understanding of Shakespeare. We plan to visit the Globe Theatre again, have a tour of the venue and take part in a workshop. We will also try to visit Stratford- Upon-Avon and see not just the theatre but also the surrounding area so that our students can absorb the context and atmosphere of Shakespeare’s country. Our students benefit greatly from taking part in Arts
espeare and Arts Award
tickets to the show. Our travel costs were also supplemented through the Arts Award Access Fund. The visit was inspirational for our students and was, for some, their first visit to London, let alone the Globe Theatre. The activities helped to nurture confidence and encouraged students to take a proactive interest in Shakespeare. Part C – Arts Heroes and Heroines: Find the
Shakespeare Connection – saw students interviewing the staff at Windsor School in Germany about their Shakespearean connections. Then Part D – Arts Apprenticeship: Inspiring Others With Shakespeare – saw the group lead a lesson to a year 6 class from a partner primary school, allowing students to share their acquired skills and knowledge of Macbeth. This was hugely challenging for the group as none had ever led primary school students, or experimented with Shakespearean text. The benefit of the Shakespeare Challenge was
immense for our students on many levels. Not only were they all successful in gaining a Bronze Award, they were able to explore Shakespeare’s plays through a meaningful, creative and rewarding process. The opportunity to take part in the national pilot gave the students a sense of importance and inclusion. We even had t-shirts printed with a logo to make us ambassadors for the RSC’s Stand Up for Shakespeare Manifesto. Shakespeare’s contribution to education is
incredibly pertinent and all students should experience it practically; after all, Shakespeare never intended
his plays to be read. Shakespeare’s works can open a myriad of creative opportunities for young people. His texts are timeless despite their Renaissance
context and we can all learn from his plots, themes and relationship constructs because they are as relevant today as they were when he wrote them. We hope to continue delivering the Shakespeare Challenge long into the future.
Matthew Gough
Teacher, The Virtual College, Birmingham The Virtual College has been running Arts Award since 2007 and it was one of the first schools to get involved in the Shakespeare Challenge. In 2009 we signed up for the Shakespeare
Challenge’s pilot programme with our Bronze Arts Award students. We know Shakespeare is still so vital in education today and we wanted to help bring it to life for our students. The project was so successful that we decided to make it available to even more of our students and signed up to deliver the programme when it launched nationally in September last year. Our students gain so much from Shakespeare
Challenge – we have used it to offer them opportunities they would never normally get, including a visit to the Globe Theatre in London and a trip to Stratford-Upon- Avon to see a live Shakespeare show. These visits help them to place Shakespeare in the
context of where he came from and how his plays were, and still are, performed. It all clicked into place after
Award. They have learnt to work with one another and also with professionals, which has helped them to gain important skills. Arts Award has also given them the opportunity to go beyond their local community to other cities and share what they have learnt. Furthermore, it has allowed our students to develop their confidence, self-esteem and feeling of self-worth, while motivating them to achieve more. Thinking about the greatest highlight from last
year’s challenge, it has to be the culmination of the project when the students’ performances were showcased at the end of the school year in front of an audience of their family, friends, tutors and even the Lord Mayor of Birmingham! It was such a thrill to see their performances and
watch them fully engage with the words and meaning of the text. I am now waiting with baited breath for our next Celebration of Success, at the end of this academic year, where the current Shakespeare Challenge project students work will be showcased again.
SecEd Further information
Arts Award and the Shakespeare Challenge:
www.artsaward.org.uk/shakespearechallenge
“The most important function of education at any level is to develop the personality of the individual and the significance of his life to
himself and to others.” Grayson Kirk (1903-1997), former president of Columbia University
“Education is a social process. Education is growth. Education is, not a preparation for life;
education is life itself.” John Dewey (1859-1952), American philosopher
“No man who worships education has got the best out of education. Without a gentle contempt for education no
man’s education is complete.” GK Chesterton (1874-1936), English writer
“Education is a progressive discovery of our own
ignorance.” Will Durant (1885-1981), American writer, philosopher and historian
“Too often we give children answers to remember rather
than problems to solve.” Roger Lewin, (1918-), British anthropologist
get started with Arts Award
Use Arts Award’s fl exible framework to support students’ creative and leadership development and to achieve a national qualifi cation in your school.
Offer Arts Award within the curriculum or to accredit extra-curricular, enrichment or re-engagement programmes.
Kickstart your school’s Arts Award by booking training
www.artsaward.org.uk/booktraining
020 7820 6178
enquiries@artsaward.org.uk www.artsaward.org.uk
Image: Arts Award Live event, Nottinghamshire, photo Joe Wheeler
SecEd • March 3 2011
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Photo: Service Children’s Education
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