Shakespeare Day takes place on 23rd April each year, and the federation celebrated this day on Friday 22nd April in School. Each year group from Reception to Year 6 marked the day with something dedicated to William Shakespeare. For some of the children it enabled them to retrieve prior about Shakespeare and build on what they already knew, for others it was an introduction to the importance of the famous playwright.
Some of the activities taking place were;
At the infant school, Reception and Year 2 watched the Cbeebies version of Midsummer’s Nights Dream and Year 1 enjoyed watching Cbeebies Romeo and Juliet alongside learning some of the well known phrases that have originated from Shakespeare’s plays such as ‘Good Riddance’ and ‘not slept a wink’.
The children in year 3 were very interested to learn all about William Shakespeare’s life. The children were not impressed that he had a salary of approximately £60 a year from renting out his properties – until we worked out that in today’s money that would have made him a very wealthy man indeed! Finally, we looked at a cartoon version of Macbeth and then some of us looked at an extract of the original play script and attempted to say it as well as decipher what it meant! The children all agreed they found the modern version much easier to understand
In year 6, the children looked at the life and legacy of William Shakespeare and the plays that he had written. The children then practised and performed the Witches Song from Macbeth.
