'Shakespeare Day' at the University of Leeds.

Atkinson, John

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As Year 9s across the country filed into halls in silence, nervously marching towards their exam desks, one group knew that they'd had the best preparation possible for the English Shakespeare question.

A large cohort of Gifted & Talented Year 9s from Bingley Grammar School and Greenhead High School, both comprehensives near Bradford, travelled to the University of Leeds for a day of high octane, high intensity workshops on Richard III, all delivered by students on Leeds' highly rated Secondary English PGCE course. The Y9s had been promised a fast-paced, funpacked series of activities covering three of the assessment strands: language, themes and character. They were not disappointed!

The day was designed to help all those involved. The Y9s would have a full day working on Richard III, the PGCE students would have a day working with an exam group and the pupils' teachers would have time to see the new, exciting ideas the next generation will bring to the chalk face. The PGCE students' brief was simple: make it fun! And they did. The activities lasted an hour and each one was entertaining, exciting and educational.

A language group mocked up a gossip magazine, covering the tittle-tattle, rumours and lies Richard spreads about his father, brother, mother and nephews. With alliteration attracting every eye and bright colours and photos splashed across the page, students gave the inequities in Shakespeare a 21st-century glam and gloss make-over.

The characters were scrutinised in a modern and meaningful way in the Big Brother Diary Room chair, with Buckingham talking about his feelings at being refused the earldom, whilst Richard and Tyrell talked tactics in the kitchen, planning and plotting to get the princes 'voted out'.

Kant's Duty Ethics may not be the first place one would start with themes but the students focussed on how Richard changed his society by not treating others as he would wish to be treated and falling victim to his own low morals. Love thy neighbour as thyself? Not under King Richard!

'Dirty Dicky Steals Throne' was splashed, blood red across the front page, the magazine lay on a table just in front of the 'Villainy Wall': brickwork detailing the lives and crimes of literature's most wanted. Groups of Y9 students talked nervously, having only just survived being shipwrecked and having had to abandon fellow survivors for the good of the rest, whilst still more were war weary from battling as Yorkists and Lancastrians in the Quiz for the Crown. All quickly hushed, though, as the PGCE students, who had been Richards to their Buckinghams all day, began to speak. And, tired as Y9 were, huge cheers, clapping of hands and stamping of feet brought Shakespeare Day to an end so appreciative, even the Bard himself would have been bowled over. The students were questioned about the day afterwards and Farrar said the only thing which should be changed was to 'make it longer'. High praise indeed.

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The day was also important for building bridges between communities only a few miles apart, with the Bingley Grammar students mixing with the more ethnically diverse students of Greenhead. It would have been far easier not to have mixed groups but, rightly so, the PGCE students wanted the learning to be about more than Richard's dastardly deeds. Greenhead student Amy Yaxley enjoyed 'learning how to work with new people' and meeting students quite different to herself.

A visit to Leeds University itself had many benefits, too. A tour of the campus and the elegant Brotherton Library opened the eyes of many students who hadn't considered life after GCSEs, never mind sixth form. Large numbers of students said that this had tipped the balance towards them going to university and many saw a new post-16 doorway open.