Our Y10/11 English group have struggled to remember the key quotes from the tragedy Macbeth; purely reading from a page or screen or watching a video just doesn't work for them.

Whilst listening to Shakespearean music, and after some quick research about what a stage may look like in Elizabethan England, they set to work learning their key quotes.

They had to find the scene their quote appears in, consider the stage directions to decide on a suitable backdrop (lighting/mood/effects), identify the main characters and their positioning and use their puppets to let the scene play out. Using different voices for their characters (mostly me as this was just too much) they rehearsed their lines which included the key quote. All at the same time as learning tips to help with spelling tricky words such as 'Shakespeare', 'soliloquy' and 'scene'.

Working like this builds links between their visual, auditory and kinaesthetic memories so strengths in one can help with difficulties in another. When in exams, our learners who are keen performers will remember the actions alongside the words, our visual learners will be able to picture their characters speaking the words and the auditory learners will remember the words they heard whilst the characters moved around.

Multisensory teaching really does help with better retention for learning.