Discover our amazing collection of William Shakespeare resources for primary and secondary pupils to use to celebrate this year's Shakespeare week, taking place from yesterday (18) to March 24.

Shakespeare Week is an annual national celebration of William Shakespeare, giving pupils the chance to encounter his characters, stories and language.

Highlights from these resources include:

  • An exploration of the role of the supernatural in Shakespeare's plays.
  • An introduction to The Tempest told via eight video clips.
  • A documentary exploring the world in which Shakespeare lived.
  • The retelling of some of the Bards most famous pieces by modern day writers.
2019 will also see the introduction of Will’s Word Warriors to Shakespeare Week. The Word Warriors will be recruited from all walks of life to champion Shakespeare’s Forgotten Words (the list compiled by linguist, author and academic Professor David Crystal) and promote more diverse uses of language. Children will soon be encouraging their peers to ‘drumble’ along, or accusing them of being ‘slug-abeds’, or even telling their teachers to stop their ‘bibble-babble’!

There will be a plethora of new online resources (all free) to ensure children of all economic backgrounds across the world get an exciting first experience of Shakespeare. This includes a new Kids’ Zone on the Shakespeare Week website, which will have a series of interactive resources and videos for children to engage with online. 

Shakespeare Week 2019 has also recruited a new patron! William Shakespaw is a trainee therapy dog, who will be meeting children in Warwickshire and Essex to share Shakespeare’s story and sniff out some forgotten words. Illustrator Marcia Williams has been specially commissioned to produce a series of Shakespeare-inspired postcards featuring William, which will go on sale in the Birthplace shop in time for the start of Shakespeare Week.

After the success of the Big Shakespeare Book Hunt last year (with 26,642 children taking part), the wild books will be returning in 2019. 154 schools (from Glasgow to the Channel Islands) will be receiving a wild book to set free into their local communities. Each Wild Book will also contain one of Shakespeare’s Forgotten Words for the children to learn about and share!

Shakespeare Week 2019 promises to be another magical and fun-filled week for children across the UK.