The Shakespeare Schools Festival (SSF) is the largest youth drama festival in the UK and offers a non-competitive, supportive and celebratory opportunity for young people to perform Shakespeare in a local professional theatre. On one night, four schools come together to perform four different half-hour plays and, by doing so, widen their horizons and discover for themselves what they are capable of achieving.

It allows teachers to develop drama skills and new ways of teaching through doing, and gives primary, secondary and special schools a novel way to raise their profile within the community.

“They (the students) have seen all staff and pupils become part of one whole happy team, sharing goals, up keeping expectations and working really hard.” Lizzy Rose, Teacher, Robert Gordon’s College Junior School

Registration includes:

-A Teacher CPD day

-A workshop at your local professional venue for the cast in September

-Access to 21 abridged scripts and resources on staging Shakespeare

-A day in a professional theatre with all the technical and directorial support needed to run a technical and dress rehearsal, and to perform in October/November

-Continuous support from your Regional coordinator

SSF is for all teachers in Scotland regardless of their level of experience in directing and for all young people – whether they think Shakespeare is boring or find it difficult to engage in the classroom, or are high achievers and love acting.

“The whole experience was immensely rewarding for everyone: it built confidence with Shakespeare’s text; it made our pupils feel ten feet tall when they performed alongside much, much larger schools.  We enjoyed the workshops and the experience of performing.  Our marketing team loved the chance to plan and sell a product. We would do it again in a heartbeat.” Mandy Tevendale, Teacher, Mallaig High School, Inverness-shire

Registration costs £750 + VAT. As a charity we raise an additional £900 towards the cost of participation for every school.

SSF is supported by OCR, AQA, Edexcel and Arts Award.

To register or find out how your students can grow through performing Shakespeare on stage alongside three other schools, please call us on 0207 601 1814 or go to our website www.ssf.uk.com

29th January at 1.45pm

The Tron Theatre will stage an exciting new show Running on the Cracks , an adaptation by Andy Arnold of the Julia Donaldson book of the same name. This new show will be staged in February 2013 and is a co-production with Pilot Theatre Company, York. Running on the Cracks is a fast moving new play about runaways, identity, survival and how friendships can develop in the strangest situations.

http://bit.ly/runningonthecracks

Join Julia Donaldson, children’s laureate for a Glow Meet live from the Tron for this exciting event. Julia will discuss her inspiration for the book and will answer your questions. Don’t miss this opportunity to speak with one of the UK’s leading children’s author.