In partnership with the Foyle Foundation
Lessons on the Shakespeare Curriculum are created for KS3 and KS4 students, and all lessons are suitable for adaptive teaching. You'll know your students best, and we therefore recommend adapting activities according to the abilities and requirements of your cohort.
Lesson content on the platform is organised into eight modules, each consisting of three lessons. It's broadly conceived that each module will cover a week's learning, although you may choose to spend longer on lessons - some have content that could easily be extended into two or even three sessions, if desired. Again, we recommend you assess content for your learners and extend, condense or adapt as appropriate.
All of our lessons (with the exception of Module 8, Lesson 3) offer two pathways: desk or studio. If you choose the former, all activities will be accessible in a conventional classroom, with desks. If you choose the latter, it's assumed that you have access to a larger, open space. Both paths have an identical Lesson Objective and Lesson Outcomes, so you could even switch pathway mid-lesson, if needed.
In this guide, we'll look at how modules and lessons are structured, and how you can get the most out of our content to engage and inspire your students.
###Modules There are eight modules in our mainstream scheme of work, and you can see these laid out when you click the Explore button from our landing page. Each module has its own page, where it explains the title and content covered in each of its lessons.
Module 1: an introduction to the play's story, character and themes.
Modules 2-7: a chronological study of the play, scene by scene.
Module 8: a final module which guides students towards a summative task.
Lesson Structures
Each lesson is organised as follows:
Introduction: An overview of the lesson, complete with Lesson Objective and Outcomes. It's suggested that this is on screen as students enter your lesson.
Starter: A short section, usually discussion-based, introducing students to the key concepts of the lesson.
Main: A longer section, usually consisting of two or more activities, which develops learning in line with the Lesson Objective.
Extension: A section which develops ideas or concepts in more detail, and guides students towards a written task. This is ideal for KS4 students, although it may also be suitable for more advanced KS3 learners.
Plenary: A dialogic and reflective section, which asks students to evaluate and discuss their learning. This section also includes a Learning Log which can be filled in during or after the lesson, and will be sent to students as a reminder of what you've covered.
Home Learning: Each lesson has a home learning section, but this is entirely optional. You can decide whether or not you wish to assign this section to your students. If you do want to set this activity as a home work, it can be sent directly to each student's Rehearsal Notebook, where they can mark the task as complete when it's ready for you to offer feedback.
###Planning It's possible to plunge straight into our lessons and teach as you go, but we'd recommend spending at least a few minutes looking at the lesson's Plan page, to familiarise yourself with the content. Here, you'll find an overview of the lesson, a key question addressed in the lesson, a button to show you where you are in the play, and the Lesson Objective and Outcomes.
This page also includes a list of all handouts used in the lesson that you'll need to print in advance. These are available in pdf and doc versions - so you have the option to edit them yourself. Additionally, this page has the lesson's Teacher Guide, which walks you through the lesson content in more detail and offers advice on pedagogy.
From this page, you can choose your lesson pathway and click straight into teaching, or if you prefer you can click back into that module's overview page.
###Teaching To teach a lesson, simply click on the Teach button and select which pathway you'd prefer: desk or studio. Once you've done that, you can select the green Start button, and you're off!
Lesson sections are labelled on the left-hand side of the screen, and you can use this menu to click through the content. Alternatively, you can use the arrow buttons in the bottom left-hand corner.
Whenever a handout is needed, it's clearly indicated on screen. You can also access the full list of lesson handouts by clicking on the Handouts tab at the top of the page.
It's assumed that you'll be using your own copies of the text or our printed handouts during the lesson, but if you did want to access the text as a class, the Foyle Digital Playtext tab at the top of the page takes you to the act and scene studied in the lesson.
###Resources As detailed above, handouts for printing are listed both on the Plan pages and the Handouts tab of the lesson. Any additional resources, such as pens and paper, are detailed in the Teacher Guide accompanying the lesson.
In order to get the most from the activities, you'll need sound enabled, as most lessons include video and/or audio. You can also zoom in and out of content in your browser to ensure it's at the optimum size for your class, and pressing F11 will take the content to full screen.