Schools in Devon, Norfolk and Oxfordshire will benefit from a partnership deal announced on Tuesday 6 May.by NFU Mutual and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

NFU Mutual is supporting the RSC’s Learning & Performance Network in the role of Rural Communities Partner. The RSC’s Learning & Performance Network promotes and supports creative approaches to the teaching, learning and performance of Shakespeare’s plays through a network of Primary and Secondary schools across England. The aim of the Network is to provide schools that would not normally have access to the RSC’s work with a sustained relationship with the RSC.

The generous contribution will help bring one school from each area to the RSC’s Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon for a special Regional Schools Celebration on 30 June 2008 where they will perform their own responses to a Shakespeare play or to a theme from a selection of his plays.

The Network currently consists of 157 Primary Schools, 87 Secondary Schools, 6 Special Schools and 2 Pupil Reintegration Units. The RSC estimates that 65,000 students have benefited from L&PN to date and that by August 2010 approximately 150,000 students and over 7,000 teachers will have benefited from the scheme.

 Ian Geden, NFU Mutual Chief Executive said: As a company with its headquarters in Warwickshire, the rural heart of the country, we are delighted to be the RSC Rural Communities Partner, enabling schools from rural areas to come to Stratford-upon-Avon to showcase their work. We have been sponsoring the RSC since 2004, and to continue this support in 2008 is really pleasing. We are looking forward to our contact with young people across all parts of the country.’

Jacqui O’Hanlon, the RSC’s Acting Director of Education said: ‘We are thrilled to be working with NFU Mutual on our Learning & Performance Network. The Network is an integral part of our education strategy, and the teachers and children we have worked with over the last two years have helped us to produce Stand up for Shakespeare, our manifesto for teaching Shakespeare in schools: www.rsc.org.uk/standupforshakespeare.

 The aim of Stand up for Shakespeare is to ensure that children and young people have a positive experience of Shakespeare by exploring the text practically, seeing live performances and encountering his plays earlier, ideally from the age of eight.’