Secondary Shakespeare in the UK : what gets taught and why?

In this paper, we report data from the first national survey of secondary Shakespeare teaching in the UK, conducted online in 2017–18 with a sample of 211 teachers distributed through England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. We report on what is taught and why. Our survey shows that the most popular play in the UK is Macbeth, which is one-fifth of all Shakespeare teaching instances in our sample. At age 11, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest dominate, while at A level A.C. Bradley’s “big four” – Othello, Hamlet, King Lear and Macbeth – are the most popular. Reasons to teach certain texts related to clear plot, themes and good characters for analysis; aside from the play’s characteristics, whether or not there were copies of the text in school was the major deciding factor in what to teach, along with the existence of supporting resources