Royal Shakespeare Company gets £7m endowment for education work

The Royal Shakespeare Company has received a £7 million endowment to secure the future of its education work.

Alongside the endowment from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation is a £500,000 grant to fund a study into the impact of theatre-based approaches to Shakespeare’s work on children’s learning outcomes.

The RSC’s education programme reaches more than 500,000 students every year through activities including workshops, productions performed in local schools, streaming productions for free and the Next Generation talent development programme for young people from backgrounds under-represented in the arts.

RSC Education director Jacqui O’Hanlon said: "This endowment is extraordinary, especially coming in the midst of the hardest professional and personal test any of us has faced.

"It is particularly welcome as schools face significant challenges in supporting the well-being needs of young people, as well as ensuring basic skills, reading and writing."

O’Hanlon added: "No one has the answers about what the future holds for society, education or arts and culture, but this award means that we can secure a future for this work, knowing that it contributes towards well-being, supports young people to find their voice and discover more about themselves and who they want to be."

Moira Sinclair, chief executive of Paul Hamlyn Foundation, said she hoped the long-term endowment will “help to ensure the future sustainability and innovation of this programme and its continued reach out into communities across the country, especially now”.

She added: "Vitally, we are providing resource to build a rigorous evidence base to demonstrate its impact and benefit. This, in turn, will provide tangible outcomes to support the wider creative sector and help make the case for cultural education practice at the heart of all our schools."