Shakespeare Assembly
• Suitable for KS2
• Aim: To celebrate Shakespeare’s legacy.
Preparation and materials
None, but you might like to consider cards with the idioms and words written on them or you can use the “Shakespeare Week” PowerPoint presentation constructed to compliment this assembly and a You Tube video clip of a Shakespeare play or two.
The Musicline Song Download “Will’s Wonderful Words” if required for the song.
PowerPoint Slide 1
Welcome the children and explain that the assembly is to celebrate a very important writer of plays;William Shakespeare.
Ask who has heard of him. Why is he famous?
Explain that no one is exactly sure of his birth date because people did not register births at the time Shakespeare was born.
Parents usually had children baptised when they were about 3 days old and records in Stratford upon Avon show that it is likely that Shakespeare was born on 23rd April 1564.
Is anyone lucky enough to share this birthday?
This is very convenient too since it is St George’s Day: Patron Saint of England!
PowerPoint Slide 2
Shakespeare is famous for writing plays and poems.
Can anyone name any?
Some plays are still widely seen today.
Ask if anyone has seen “Gnomeo and Juliet”, the animated film from 2011, loosely based on Romeo and Juliet.
(If you like, read the start of Juliet’s balcony scene, then the corresponding scene from the film. It is surprisingly accurate paraphrasing!)
PowerPoint Slide 3
There are plays about shipwrecks, witches, ghosts and wild animals.
Although the words might be hard to understand in that they were written over 400 years ago, they are well worth reading.
PowerPoint Slide 4
You probably hear and speak Shakespeare every day without realising it.
Put your hand up if you’ve ever used any of these words:
- Amazement (from The Tempest)
- Cold - blooded (from King John)
- Bloodstained (from Henry IV pt. 1)
- Silliness (from Othello)
- Shooting Star (from Richard II)
In which case, you’ve been talking Shakespeare!
PowerPoint Slide 5
Has anyone ever heard or used any of these idioms (or “sayings” if you prefer)
That something vanished into thin air
That something happened all of a sudden
That you need to lie low
That the truth will out
That something vanished into thin air
That something scary makes your hair stand on end
In which case, that’s Shakespeare.
Shakespeare wasn’t born into a rich family. His father made gloves and he had to help.
Nevertheless, from the time he saw his first play when he was four, he loved the theatre, plays and words and would walk miles to see a play.
When he became older he knew he had to try his best to be a writer, so he left his home, his family and friends and went to London.
Eventually he did become a famous playwright and wrote, we think, about 37 plays and 154 poems.
Shakespeare died in 1616, 400 years ago.
PowerPoint Slide 6
You may, at this point, like to show a short clip of a play or two from You Tube, for example, or have 3 confident pupils come and act the Witches’ scene from the beginning of Macbeth.
Song
Any appropriate song from the school’s usual selection, or use “Will’s Wonderful Words” from the musical “Shakespeare Rocks!” from Musicline.
This is also available as a free download from “Shakespeare Week”.
Prayer
Thank you for words, for poems, stories and plays.
Thank you for the excitement and magic of the theatre and the work of Shakespeare that everyone can enjoy.
Help us, like him, to follow our dreams and make the most of our talents.
Amen