Senior School News & Events Serious about Shakespeare
Serious about Shakespeare
The English Department at Clayesmore is very serious about Shakespeare. The Bard’s text is studied throughout the syllabus and so, ever focused on bringing the best and most dynamic teaching methods into the classroom, staff this week took lessons themselves from none other than the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Here is an account from Head of English, Helen Christmas:
As Jacques announces rather mournfully in As You Like It:
“All the world’s a stage,And all the men and women merely players;
…and this was certainly true for the Clayesmore English department and other invited guests for a Royal Shakespeare Company Outreach training session on Friday 22nd January. Visitors, all English teachers at nearby schools, and the home-grown lot made their exits and entrances and in their “time play(ed) many parts”!The session was run by one of the RSC teachers who work with groups all over the country, not only teachers but students, youth groups and prison inmates. Rachel Gartfield’s passion for the Bard was obvious from the first minutes of the course but it is a passion to prove how accessible and exciting the study of Shakespeare should be for students.
Using a variety of teaching approaches, all practical, Rachel showed us how to communicate the brilliance and eloquence of Shakespeare’s language through drama, discussion and play. All of us will have taken away a renewed enthusiasm as well as some exciting new techniques for learning and teaching which are suitable for Key stage 3 upwards.
She reminded us that these plays are dramatic creations and that our responsibility as teachers of Shakespeare is to enable the students to appreciate the complexities and beauty of language and character without simply focusing on the written page.
To misquote Claudius: Words without thoughts never to A* go.