Shakespeare Globe

Trusts and Foundations

We are very grateful for the support we receive from a growing number of trusts and foundations. Unlike most major arts organisations in this country, we receive no annual government funding, and so charitable grants underwrite much of our valuable education and outreach work.

Globe Education is one of the most highly-regarded centres for learning in this country, and has pioneered performance based approaches to teaching Shakespeare. We work with over 100,000 people of all ages every year at our Bankside home through a series of interactive workshops and a comprehensive programme of seminars and lectures, and with many more thousands across the country and abroad through videoconferences and distance-learning projects.

The projects below, all of which require on-going funding, demonstrate in particular our commitment to working with schools in our local communities of Southwark and Lambeth and with children who have Special Educational Needs.

Workshops with SENSE
Globe Education runs workshops in collaboration with SENSE, the national association for people with deafblindness and associated disabilities, to explore language and communication. By using the resonance of the Globe stage, we aim to stimulate sensory engagement with Shakespeare’s stories.

We now need to develop this project to discover new frameworks for both students and Globe practitioners to learn new and imaginative ways of working. Globe Education practitioners will then be able to take these skills into other workshops that we run both at the theatre itself and in local schools.

Gosden House School Residency
In September 2002 Globe Education began a three-year project with Gosden House School in Surrey with the aim of exploring creative approaches to learning for students with special needs. The first year culminated in a production of Romeo and Juliet with all 114 students participating in set design, music and drama. Ofsted inspectors noted this project as an example of outstanding practice that had a profound impact both on pupils’ achievement in literacy and in the development of their self-esteem.

Further funding allowed Globe Education to continue this work in 2008/9, to include in-school workshops, visits to the Globe, work on the Globe stage, and further training for teachers from Gosden House and for Globe Education Practitioners that will enable us to specialise in work with students with SEN.

Community projects in Southwark and Lambeth
Each year Globe Education seeks to create new partnerships with schools in Southwark and Lambeth. We are also committed to finding new partners to support the extension of our work within the diverse wider community of Southwark. As Shakespeare dramatised social, political and emotional issues and asked questions about his community, so we encourage students to consider the same issues and questions about their own community through “play”. Shakespeare’s plays and characters provide a frame through which students can better understand themselves.

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