In partnership with the Foyle Foundation

A Guide to the Teacher Workspace

In this guide, we'll review what teachers can expect to find, and the tools they can use, in the My Workspace section of the Shakespeare Curriculum.

Library

In this section, a teacher can assign tasks to their classes, groups, or individual students. These then automatically appear on a student's home page and Home Learning section.

The section has the following sub-sections:

My Resources

Both teachers and students have access to their own personal resource library: My Resources.

When you find a resource you'd like to bookmark, you can click the star icon to save it here. You can also upload your own teaching materials to use in class. (Uploads are limited to web-native formats such as jpg and png images, mp4 videos, mp3 audio, etc.)

If you do choose to upload your own resources, they'll also be available for you to use if you create your own lessons, schemes or homeworks.

My Lessons

You can save lessons to your My Lessons' library by clicking the star icon to bookmark them.

You can also create copies of lessons and edit the sections of a lesson.

Teachers can build lessons from scratch using:

  • Sections from RSC Curriculum lessons.
  • RSC resources from the Resource Bank.
  • Their own resources created on the platform.
  • Their own, uploaded, resources.

Teachers can also:

  • Group resources into activities and sections.
  • Set sections as Home Learning, so that the contents can be shared with students as home learning assignments.
  • Add a Learning Log to a custom lesson, to record learning achieved.
  • Assign an image to a lesson (coming soon).
  • Provide a brief description for a lesson (coming soon).

To create a custom lesson in the My Lessons area of My Workspace:

  • Click Create Lesson to create a new lesson and give it a name.
  • You then have the first section (for example, starter, main or plenary) of your lesson to populate. Give it a name.
  • Add resources into the section. These could be your own resources that you've created on site, resources you've uploaded, or any of the resources from our Resource Bank.
  • If you want to break down your lesson section further, you can add an activity. Each section can have as many activities as you like.
  • You can also add content straight from RSC lessons - just click on the button at the bottom of the page to scroll through the available RSC Lesson Sections.

Once you've created your lesson, you can:

  • Add, remove and rename lesson sections.
  • Move resources between lesson sections by clicking and dragging.
  • Assign the content of sections as Home Learning (by default they are set to Teaching, but you can change this in the purple title bar).
  • Add a Learning Log to the lesson by clicking on the button at the bottom of the page.

My Schemes

Once you've created your lessons, you may want to group them together into a scheme of work. In this section, you can add your own lessons, RSC lessons, or a mixture of the two, to create your own, bespoke scheme.

User created schemes can be assigned to a group. If the scheme’s lessons have home learning assigned it will be shared with the students.

To create a custom scheme in the My Schemes area of My Workspace:

  • Click Create New Scheme and give it a name.
  • Click + Lesson and browse for lessons, clicking + every time you find one to add.
  • Click and drag to put the lessons in your required order.
  • If you want to share the scheme with other teachers at your school then you can Publish it.

You can then assign the scheme to a class or group. If the scheme’s lessons have home learning, this will be shared with the students. You can also access schemes published by other teachers at your school, in the lower portion of the My Schemes page.

My School

The My School section of the page is where you can go to administrate the users related to your school - both teachers and student groups.

Student Groups

In this section you can create groups or classes of students, add students to existing groups, and assign and mark homework.

To create a group:

  • Click Create Group and give the group or class a name.
  • Select a curriculum from the drop-down menu. This could be an RSC scheme of work, one that you've created yourself, or one that's been published by a colleague at your school. Please note that assigning a curriculum to a group will mean that all the associated homework is also assigned, unless you choose to remove it from the lesson.
  • Next, add students to the group. If a student is new to the platform, they'll receive an email with their login details. If they already have access to the Shakespeare Curriculum, they can just use their existing login. Each student will have a new Rehearsal Notebook created for each scheme they are assigned.

Teachers

In the Teachers section you're able to create and invite other teachers in your school, as well as administer those already added to the platform. What you can see and update in these sections will depend on whether you are the Lead Teacher for your school or not.

The Lead Teacher is the first teacher to sign up to the platform by default. This can be changed to a different teacher, once other teachers have been added to the Shakespeare Curriculum. Only a Lead Teacher can choose a different teacher to become the new Lead Teacher.

Create resources

Within My Workspace, teachers have the ability to create a range of resources for themselves and their students. This becomes especially helpful as you start to build your own lessons and schemes of work. Some of the resources you can create are listed below.

Pages
Pages allows you to build pages for your own reference or to add to your schemes of work. This is where you can create your own lessons - just as you would build a PowerPoint.

Moodboards
Moodboards are editable spaces where resources (either RSC resources or your own) can be dropped in to a flexible digital whiteboard space. This is a great way to prompt discussions and help more visual learners engage with activities.

Flashcards & Decks
The RSC has a ready-made bank of Quote Cards, but teachers and students can also make their own. Flashcards don't have to be for quotations - they could be on themes, stories, characters - whatever you and your students find most useful. Decks of flashcards can also be built to create personal revision tools.

Upload
If you have tried and tested resources you want to integrate with existing platform content, you can upload them here. Once uploaded, you can incorporate these resources into your own lessons and schemes of work.