Spotlight on: The Shakespeare Curriculum
Jacqui O’Hanlon, Deputy Executive Director and Director of Creative Learning & Engagement at the Royal Shakespeare Company, introduces the RSC’s newly launched digital education platform. Free to all state-maintained and SEND secondary schools, The Shakespeare Curriculum uses the RSC’s award-winning teaching approaches and theatre-based pedagogies to improve learning outcomes and foster essential skills for life and work
Four years ago, the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) asked hundreds of young people and teachers in schools across the country, and members of our own Youth Advisory Board, what problem or challenge the RSC could best help overcome. Overwhelmingly, they asked us to prioritise changing the way Shakespeare – still the only writer that must be studied in England and Wales from age 11 – is experienced in secondary schools.
We were a bit downcast at first. We, along with many other brilliant theatre companies and artists, had been working with schools for years, exploring how to use Shakespeare’s plays to unlock potential and develop creative agency. But we hadn’t cracked an ‘at scale’ way of doing that.
I got through countless spreadsheets calculating how many artists and professional development days it would take to bring theatre-based approaches to exploring Shakespeare’s work into every school (a lot!).
Embracing technology
When thinking about scale, you naturally consider a digital solution. Three years ago, we started to find one. We worked in consultation with teacher and student expert groups to find out what each needed (teachers need inspiring content that meets curriculum needs; students want materials that activate creative agency and all the attendant benefits that brings).
We hit many bumps along the road but with the support of the Foyle Foundation were able to develop two prototypes before launching the Shakespeare Curriculum in November 2025. The funding we received was transformational, enabling us to work with technology partner About Charanga to develop the platform.
The Shakespeare Curriculum has two interfaces: one for students and one for teachers. The curriculum:
- Equips teachers with a ready-made, flexible and customisable framework of 24 lessons to unlock Shakespeare’s language, characters, themes and plots.
- Includes access to thousands of resources including RSC image archives, past productions, video content, tutorial videos, interactive play texts, quizzes, quote banks, progress tracking and more.
- Contains SEND schemes of work for secondary students with Moderate Learning Difficulties (MLD), as well as suggested approaches for students with Profound MLD and Severe Learning Difficulties (SLD).
It’s free to all state-maintained and SEND secondary schools and uses the RSC’s award-winning teaching approaches, based on the way actors work in rehearsals. Research shows that using theatre-based pedagogies to explore Shakespeare’s work improves learning outcomes and fosters essential skills for life and work.
What’s happened since launch?
At launch, our ambition was that by 2029/30 we’d have 80% of all state-maintained secondary schools using the Curriculum. Three months post launch and already 25% have registered – that’s 1,040 schools and over 2,200 teachers to date.
The arts entitlement gap
The Cultural Learning Alliance has produced data showing an arts entitlement gap. Data on arts GCSE entry levels and free school meal eligibility suggests that access to arts-rich learning remains at its lowest in areas with highest levels of deprivation (with the highest correlation seen in the West Midlands, North West and North East).
Our Shakespeare Curriculum data reveals that 70% of all secondary schools in the West Midlands have registered, 73% in Greater Manchester, 64% in West Yorkshire and over a third of secondary schools in Merseyside.
What happens next?
We’ve launched with one play – Macbeth – but the platform will grow to hold the 10 most studied plays by Shakespeare. We can get real-time data on registrations and user journeys and will use a mixture of user data and focus groups to adjust platform content as part of an iterative development process.
The platform is currently geo-locked to schools in the UK as we consider our international strategy for roll-out overseas.
To find out more about the platform and how schools can register, visit: www.rsc.org.uk/learn/shakespeare-curriculum
