How does love affect us? Is violence ever the answer? Should you ever ask someone to do something you’re not willing to do yourself? Shakespeare may have lived over 400 years ago, but the questions he raises in his plays are as relevant in today’s world as they’ve ever been.

At Coram Shakespeare Schools Foundation, we’re always finding ways to start the conversation - ways to get young people talking, discussing and debating. After a year of lockdowns, isolation and remote learning, we’ve got the tools to help children leave loneliness behind, get a literacy boost, improve their wellbeing, and seize new opportunities for the future. The Education Endowment Foundation, summarising a range of studies on the impact of the first lockdown, observed in June that not only have pupils ‘made less academic progress compared with previous year groups,’ but that ‘there is a large attainment gap for disadvantaged pupils which seems to have grown.’

We offer students chances to develop their communication, collaboration and creativity, bridging the attainment gap with projects that let every student find their voice; a commitment to accessibility and inclusion is at the heart of everything we deliver. We build confidence onscreen and behind the scenes, bringing students and staff together to create, achieve and celebrate.

95% of teachers surveyed who took part in our 2020 flagship event, One Night of Shakespeare, reported that their students were more able to empathise with each other as result of the project; 95% reported that their students worked better as team. 79% told us that their students’ attainment in English had improved, with 81% reporting their students’ academic attainment in general had improved too. These are the kinds of results we know how to deliver. We have twenty years’ experience in offering schools innovative and exciting education projects that improve outcomes for students, staff, and whole school communities. Our projects bring people together, empower students to speak up for themselves and give them the tools they need to succeed wherever life may take them.

Join us and find out how to film a Shakespeare production using nothing more high-tech than a smartphone, how to light a shot with a couple of bedside lamps, and how to tell a whole Shakespeare story within the span of half an hour. Unleash your inner Baz Luhrman or Kenneth Branagh for a project that’s sure to get your whole school community talking!

Click here to head on over to our Film Festival page and find out how to get your school involved today!