Children at Westbourne House School experienced an enriching first encounter with Shakespeare during its Book Week 2019.
The school values reading highly and Book Week is designed to create a focus on reading, provide a physical demonstration of the importance of reading, as well as celebrating the fun and joy reading can create. This year’s theme also brought Shakespeare to life for pupils.
Book Week activities were many and varied and the whole school was alive with Shakespeare-inspired learning including sessions practising insults in the bard’s words and concocting Shakespearian spells.
Mrs Pippa Sutcliffe, Head of English, summarised: “We were delighted with the outcome: the whole school and the children fizzed with enthusiasm for books and reading. It was also wonderful to introduce pupils to Shakespeare. Shakespeare never meant his plays to be read behind a desk in a classroom – they were written to be performed. We aim for our pupils to love language and we asked pupils to learn and perform a few lines of Shakespeare. In order to do this, the children needed to comprehend fully the meaning as well as deliver the lines in a way that ensured the audience understood.”
The younger Pre-Prep children learnt how audiences behaved back in Shakespeare’s time and when the Year 7 children performed Shakespeare for them, they booed the villains and cheered the heroes! Other performances during the week included the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, which was acted out – much to enjoyment of pupils and staff – by members of the school’s in-house maintenance team. A Macbeth scene was dramatically performed by English teachers and pupils at the ‘Shakespeare: This Is Your Life’ assembly, and Year 5 staged their adaptation of Julius Caesar in front of the pillars of main house for years 1 – 4.
Throughout the week, pupils and staff also shared their favourite quotes from books, plays and poems, as well as reading on demand when a special bell rang out for the ‘drop everything and read’ sessions. The Year 7 Happy Helpers, a position of responsibility in the school, read to the younger children in the Pre-Prep and Nursery as well.
A Shakespeare-themed dress up day saw many colourful ideas from plays including fairies, King Lear, a spider, Romans and Nick Bottom as a donkey.
Arthur Southall, Year 6, said: “I loved Glenn and Lloyd’s (two of Westbourne House’s Maintenance Team), performance of Romeo and Juliet using the stairs and balcony in the Main House. It was brilliant!”
Mary Bruce, Year 4, added: “I enjoyed reading, writing and performing spells, like the ones in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
Pippa Sutcliffe concluded: “Shakespeare is arguably the greatest writer in the English language. When talking to pupils at towards the end of the week, I got a real sense of the love they have for Shakespeare and his works of literature.”