Shakespeare Week is an annual national celebration organised by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, giving primary school aged children a chance to have a great first encounter with Shakespeare - his characters, stories and language.
We work with primary schools and cultural organisations across the UK to offer children and their families a variety of rich and enjoyable experiences that weave Shakespeare's works, life and times across the whole curriculum.
We passionately believe that every child should have the opportunity for a great first experience with Shakespeare. Thousands of schools, home educators, families and organisations have registered to celebrate with us, and we hope you'll do the same.
Register now
Discover more about what Shakespeare Week has to offer you:
For Teachers
For Home Educators
For Families
For Organisations
What does Shakespeare Week have to offer?
Shakespeare Week offers cross-curricular resources and activities to educators and families, inspiring them to explore Shakespeare in creative and cross curricular ways. All participating teachers and home educators can access hundreds of resources covering the breadth of the curriculum.
Shakespeare Week is supported around the UK by a range of cultural partners who offer exciting events for schools and families in their localities. Participating partner organisations can access inspiring ideas for events and list all relevant events on our website.
Together, we have already helped bring Shakespeare to life for an estimated 9 million children across the UK.
Why Celebrate Shakespeare?
Shakespeare is a named author on the curriculum in 65% of countries, studied by around half of the world’s schoolchildren every year. He has been hailed as the UK’s greatest cultural export, and the foremost reason why people are proud to be British. Yet many British children encounter Shakespeare only in their teens as a mandatory subject studied for exams. Many grow up to regard Shakespeare as difficult, and not for them, and in turn are very unlikely to introduce their own youngsters to his works.
Shakespeare Week opens the door to Shakespeare and ensures that children are given a chance to have a great first experience with one of the world’s most famous playwrights.
Find the answers to other common questions on our FAQs page.