In partnership with the Foyle Foundation

A Guide to the Student Experience

Students have a slightly different set of features and screens that are specific to them, and differ to what teachers see. The following outlines some of these differences to give teachers a better understanding of how their students navigate Shakespeare Curriculum content and assignments.

In this guide, we'll cover how students can find and complete assignments, home learning and create their own revision content.

Home Learning

The Home Learning page is the key page for students. It's their personal hub for quick access to assignments, tasks and the content they've either created or saved for future reference.

The page itself links to a number key sections:

  • Assignments
  • Rehearsal Notebook
  • My Resources
  • Quote Bank
  • Revision Notes
  • Flashcard Builder
  • Revision Bundles

Assignments

A teacher can assign tasks to their classes, groups, or individual students. This then automatically appears in a student's home page and Home Learning section.

Quick access: There is a box on the homepage that lists the next couple of upcoming homework assignments. It also lists the last couple of pieces in case they need to be reviewed.

The Home Learning page provides access to all upcoming homework assignments, and completed homework in the Rehearsal Notebook.

If the teacher has completed a Learning Log for the lesson, and this is associated with the homework, the Learning Log will be included with the homework in the Rehearsal Notebook. All of the RSC lesson logs and homework are associated with the relevant lesson.

Homework tasks that require the student to provide a response, for example, questions, essays, quizzes, etc, have a Submit button that marks the work as complete for the teacher to mark. The student can then review their mark and any feedback on the submitted assignment. (Please note: this may differ if your school uses marking and feedback through your pre-existing Microsoft or Google Classroom platforms.)

Work is completed in the Rehearsal Notebook in the notebook page - the student can see a side panel containing the task that they answer in the notebook page on the left. As well as having word processing capabilities, notebook pages allow students to embed items from the Resource Bank. They can paste images, take videos from the camera and embed from external services if you have allowed the appropriate cookies by pasting a link from the following services:

  • YouTube
  • Vimeo
  • Daily Motion
  • X (Twitter)
  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • Spotify
  • Tiktok

The Student Notebook

The student notebook is a key section of a student's Shakespeare Curriculum experience. It's the place where students are invited to complete assignments, but also a place where they can create their own notes and responses, creating a key component of how they approach revision for a play.

In addition to the homework provided, students can use the Student Notebook to:

  • Make their own notes and revision notes in the Rehearsal Notebook.
  • Plan their presentation in the Rehearsal Notebook.

###Revision Resources and Revision Bundles

Students can:

  • Create revision notes in the Rehearsal Notebook (see above).

  • Browse and filter the Resource Bank for revision materials.

  • Use the RSC’s curated collection of revision materials, or bundles, via the Revision section. A revision bundle is similar to a lesson and they focus on the following:

  • The Story: Scene by Scene / Timeline / Plot sorter.

  • The Characters: key resources including Who's Who.

  • The Themes: a collection of videos from across the site.

  • Character analysis: resources which include an 'Interrogate a Character' activity.

  • Language Analysis: resources for investigating language.

  • Key Terms: key terms used in analysis.

###Flashcard Builder Students can use the Flashcard Builder to create Flashcards and Flashcard Decks to aid their studies.

Flashcards can be created from the Digital Playtext as well as being available as imports from the Quote Bank via the Resource Bank. Students can just practise all of their Flashcards in a simple way via the Practise All Cards button, or organise them into named decks that allow them to practise the cards over and over in a repetitive fashion.

###Other tools available to students

####Digital Playtext This allows students to browse the text and view annotations, a glossary, character cards, a modern-day "translation and video of each scene included.

####Full Production This is a direct link to the full production videos of the plays included on the Curriculum.

####Resource Bank Students have the same access to the same content as teachers in the Resource Bank. They are able to browse through the resources, using filters to find or explore all content. They can use the star icon to bookmark content which will then be accessible to them in the My Resources section of Home Learning.

####Quote Bank The **Quote Bank **directs students to a pre-filtered view of the Resource Bank to display all quote resources. Students can use the star icon to save quotes to their My Resources section of Home Learning.