Bring Romeo and Juliet alive for secondary pupils

Tuesday 14/04/2009

Secondary schools pupils can now enjoy the benefits of a live performance of Shakespeare’s tragic love story ‘Romeo and Juliet’ even when they are unable to visit the theatre, thanks to an audio recording from the National Strategies.

A special performance of the play, produced by Globe Education at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London, has been recorded as an audio recording to help pupils experience the powerful love drama. It was created for the ‘Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank’ project.

It can be downloaded free onto a MP3 player, iPod or computer from: www.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/nationalstrategies/shakespeare where there is a dedicated Teaching Shakespeare area with Secondary National Strategies resources to support teachers to improve teaching and learning. Pupils can then listen to the recordings as often as they want.

As well as enjoying the many benefits of a live performance, the resource features interviews with the director, Bill Buckhurst, and actors, and provides insights into the decisions actors make when rehearsing.

Clive Bush, National Director Secondary for the National Strategies said: “Teachers can use it to support teaching the play and use the interviews to stimulate discussion about the characters; what drives them to marry and then commit suicide, the themes of family relationships, parental expectations, street violence and how actors approach the text through exploring Shakespeare’s language and poetic techniques.”

It is the second time an audio recording has been available from the National Strategies for pupils. In 2007, the audio recording for Globe Education’s production of ‘Much ado about Nothing’ proved very popular, with 9,000 downloads in the first month.

Globe Education was able to stage the play ‘Romeo and Juliet’ thanks to the generous funding from Deutsche Bank, with media partnership from the Financial Times.

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Note to editors:
The National Strategies’ aim is to raise standards of achievement and rates of progression for children and young people in all phases and settings in England through personalised learning with a particular focus on the core subjects and early years.

Globe Education’s production of Romeo and Juliet was presented free to 10,000 of London’s 14 year olds during its week-long run in March, in order to introduce students to Shakespeare through live performance. This is the third year of the ‘Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank’ project, which is part of Globe Education’s commitment to creative approaches to the teaching and learning of Shakespeare. There is an online learning resource at www.playingshakespeare.org.  

Media Contact
Jane Parrack, Deputy Marketing and Communications Manager, The National Strategies 0118 918 2617 or jane.parrack@nationalstrategies.co.uk