Bespoke INSET Days

An INSET session with the RSC is an opportunity for evidence-based professional development for your teachers to support their teaching through the Shakespeare Curriculum. Our bespoke professional development workshops can focus on any Shakespeare play and will feature several active approaches to enhance student outcomes. You can book a full day, half-day, twilight or online session.

“ Absolutely fantastic! The RSC created the perfect environment for us to have fun in a safe environment and learn so many pedagogical ideas – but also new perspectives on a play that many of us have taught for years! My department have all commented that it’s the best INSET they’ve had.”

BOOKING INFORMATION

• Full Day: £950 for state schools* (£1,250 for other institutions)
• Half Day/Twilight: £750 for state schools* (£950 for other institutions)
• Online workshop: £250 for state schools* (£350 for other institutions)

*State schools including academies, local authority schools, and free schools.

For international schools outside of the UK, please contact us for bespoke pricing.

If you would like to make an enquiry about INSET sessions before you make a booking please contact us at: schools.curriculum@rsc.org.uk

If you are ready to book an INSET session with us please complete the form below and a member of our team will be in touch to organise the arrangements.

Booking form 2025/26

How does it work?

• Select a Shakespeare text (or other play in our repertoire) and tell us your teaching context then we will design an INSET session for your teachers to meet their professional development needs.
• You can select a full day of training, a half day, a twilight session or a bespoke online webinar. For longer sessions please contact us to discuss your specific requirements.
• Our CPD sessions are facilitated by our Associate Learning Practitioners, all of whom have extensive expertise in working with children, young people and teachers, as well as experience directly from our rehearsal rooms as actors, directors or other theatre artists.
• Each INSET comes with a full pack of teaching and learning resources following the day to support future planning and delivery as well as expert guidance on how to best use the Shakespeare Curriculum in your school.
• We can send a practitioner to your school anywhere around the UK, we can also host you in one of our education spaces in Stratford-upon-Avon or we can deliver a session online.

Professional Outcomes

An INSET session with the RSC gives teachers impactful, creative, evidence-informed, career-long professional development. Teachers attending an INSET session led by experienced RSC practitioners will achieve professional outcomes in key areas of development and learning.

Our INSET sessions support teachers to develop the knowledge, confidence and skills to:

• use various theatre-based practices to introduce and explore the plots and characters in Shakespeare’s plays with your students.
• use rehearsal room approaches to develop your students’ understanding of Shakespeare’s text, including monologues, soliloquies and dialogue.
• enable young people to work as text detectives to interrogate the text to explore different interpretations and performance possibilities.
• ensure effective planning for incorporating rehearsal room approaches into your lessons, with a particular focus on engaging and progressing learning for lower prior attaining students.
• create a secure learning environment in which your students feel confident to take risks and to work physically and vocally as a company of actors.
• choose scenes or speeches that best unlock the language / themes / plot to anchor your students’ analysis of a Shakespeare play.

Teacher Testimony

All the activities that we did are transferable to the classroom and our teaching. Also the value and importance of play – that creative interpretation and freedom which empowers students ability to make the text their own. Absolutely fantastic! The RSC created the perfect environment for us to have fun in a safe environment and learn so many pedagogical ideas – but also new perspectives on a play that many of us have taught for years! My department have all commented that it’s the best INSET they’ve had. Head of English, Cambridgeshire

I work in a school in a disadvantaged area. The RSC’s professional development has equipped me with the knowledge, resources and confidence to deliver lessons using rehearsal room techniques that have benefitted ALL learners in my classroom. As a result, I have seen students take ownership of the language and themes in complex Shakespeare texts in a way I had not before. Most of all, the course put the fun back into Shakespeare for me, and implementing the activities into my own practice, I felt the same enjoyment from my students. An important and life-affirming course. English Teacher, Birmingham

Many of the text-based tasks have provided useful strategies to introduce students to dense text in a way that strips away any preexisting fear of Shakespeare. Developing knowledge of plot and understanding of character before text will allow learners to meet the work where they are and engage with texts from a personal, empowering perspective. The RSC’s practitioners have been superb. Excellent levels of energy, knowledge and a well-paced course. Drama Teacher, Manchester

Thanks so much for a fabulous day. I was very apprehensive about the training as I am quite shy and found drama lessons terrifying at secondary school. I needn’t have worried as I enjoyed every part of the day! It was so well pitched and all of it was practical, useful techniques that could be put straight to use in the classroom. I have never enjoyed a training session more! Primary Teacher, East Yorkshire