Stuart Rathe

Class Teacher, Birkenhead High School Academy

Workshop Information:

This session offers a fresh and innovative approach to literacy teaching—particularly when tackling complex texts like Shakespeare. Teachers will leave with a revitalised toolkit of creative, drama-based strategies that bring texts to life, making them more accessible, engaging, and meaningful for Key Stage 2 and secondary learners.

This practical and engaging workshop will demonstrate how drama strategies can be used to deepen pupils' understanding and enjoyment of classic texts, while improving literacy outcomes at Key Stages 2 and beyond. Using one of Shakespeare’s works as a foundation, participants will explore a range of adaptable techniques designed to support reading comprehension, inference, and critical/academic writing.

Activities will include:

- Storytelling techniques for teachers

- Freeze frames and thought tracking based on a ten-point story summary

- Role on the Wall character exploration - using textual quotations to scaffold a "Point, Evidence, Explain" approach to character

- "Story graphs" to analyse and contrast characters' development

- Movement exercises

- Script work, improvisation, and language-focused drama activities

While the workshop will focus on a Shakespeare text, all approaches are fully transferable to a wide range of literacy texts.

Session Outcomes:

• Gain practical, adaptable drama strategies to enhance pupils’ comprehension, engagement, and writing in response to literary texts, particularly Shakespeare.

• Develop confidence in using active, inclusive approaches to literacy development across Key Stages 2 and beyond, with techniques easily transferable to a variety of classroom contexts.

Biography:

I am an experienced Shakespeare educator with a Master's in Shakespeare and Education from the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham. With a background as Education Manager for the cultural education charity Coram Shakespeare Schools Foundation, I now teach at Birkenhead High School Academy (Girls’ Day School Trust) in Merseyside, specialising in the active teaching of Shakespeare. Previous workshop delivery includes successful sessions at Practical Pedagogies conferences in Toulouse and Cologne. I am also a freelance resource author for BBC Teach and BBC Bitesize, having created widely used and well-reviewed teaching materials on Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, and The Merchant of Venice.