Learning on ScreenOpening the Window on Shakespeare’s Biggest Classroom
Young people were also asked to send in pictures of themselves which were uploaded onto the screen. Fiona Ingram, Head of Education programmes at the RSC, described the School’s Broadcast of Richard II as ‘a big learning curve for both the RSC and the students from Ravensbourne. Everybody was learning together. We initially had no idea what capacity we would need.’ As Fiona, and James Morris course leader at Ravensbourne, have both separately acknowledged, with a live audience of 30,000 people there was no room for failure.
…‘It was a case of ‘if you can’t come to us, then we are coming to you’
The RSC Schools’ Broadcasts have been greeted with much enthusiasm by students and teachers around the country. One teacher wrote:
‘It was a case of ‘if you can’t come to us, then we are coming to you’ and gave our kids the opportunity to see the RSC for the first time in their lives … the interview with David and Greg was excellent and clearly gave schools the opportunity to access the creative heart of the production – instead of being outside looking in, noses pressed against the window pane, the window was opened and we felt like we were in the room.’[ix]
© Jamie Morris / Ravensbourne College
For the RSC the benefit of the collaboration is twofold: it has opened the door to new ways of engaging young people with Shakespeare’s works and has generated new audiences for the company’s work. Over 70,000 young people watched the latest broadcast and 82% of schools said that as a result of the broadcast they would now consider taking children to see an RSC production in a theatre.
‘The Schools’ Broadcasts series has become a central part of the RSC’s Education programme. It has enabled us to reach more schools and students than ever before, bringing the highest quality experiences of Shakespeare’s work in performance into classrooms across the UK. It is a clear example of the vital inter-relationship that exists between the arts and technology, where each achieves greater reach, relevance and creativity by the contribution of the other.’ [x] The RSC and Ravensbourne have, to date, collaborated on a total of seven Schools’ Broadcasts: I, Cinna, Richard II, Henry IV parts I & II, The Two Gentleman of Verona, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and Love’s Labour’s Won (Much Ado About Nothing). After each broadcast the interactive package for schools has been refined and developed. The footage from the RSC Live performances is now repurposed for schools, and spilt into three sections to suit the needs of an online, ‘first time’ audience – with intervals for break and lunch time. Between each section animations are streamed to enable young audiences to see a synopsis of what will happen next in the story. Images of the characters are shown to introduce who’s who, and an assistant director in the studio guides the young audience by describing what to look out for in the next section of the play. The aim is to make the broadcasts as engaging as possible and offer a variety of resources for teachers (targeted from primary through to A level). The RSC is keen that their future Schools’ Broadcasts of Henry V, (19th November 2015), Othello (17th March 2016), and The Merchant of Venice (21st April 2016), will continue to refine the experience for students, and plans are afoot to introduce outside broadcasts from participating schools, to enable students from around the country to talk directly to each other.
