The Royal Shakespeare Company is offering a large number of free Shakespeare-related resources to students learning at home and to teachers looking to create lesson plans to deliver online.
Michael Morpurgo's Tales from Shakespeare, retellings of six of Shakespeare's stories, are available to UK schools, with a new tale available on demand at 10AM on Fridays until 5 February.
The tales are aimed at youngsters aged from 6 to 16. The former children's laureate has relocated six plays and their characters to contemporary settings: Twelfth Night, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest. They are told by Morpurgo and members of the RSC acting company.
Other online content includes RSC activity toolkits which focus on six of Shakespeare's most studied plays. The toolkits have 15-minute tasks that can be completed by students at home or set as part of a remote lesson.
The toolkits will take students deeper into the world of each play. Actors including Niamh Cusack, Paapa Essiedu and David Tennant have also created video responses to questions sent in from students as part of Homework Help.
Jacqui O'Hanlon, the RSC’s director of education, said, “as children and families adjust to their new virtual classrooms we’ve created a range of different resources designed to stimulate their creativity and imagination and support their wellbeing.
“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.”
All the resources are accessible via the education section of the RSC web site.