Bard weaves magic in the classroom

Western Australian teacher Alison Kerimofski is using Shakespeare to bring the world - and better educational and behavioural outcomes - to young students with intellectual disabilities.

When Alison Kerimofski gathered her students and headed to Perth from Busselton to watch a Shakespeare production six years ago, she had no idea of the bigger, longer journey she was setting in motion. 

Nor did she have an inkling of the life-long impact it would have on herself, her young pupils with disabilities and her colleagues at the Geographe Education Support Centre in Busselton, a two-hour-plus drive south of the WA capital. 

Not in her wildest imaginings would she have predicted she’d soon be headed to Sydney on a nationally coveted scholarship with the prestigious Bell Shakespeare company. 

"To have someone believe in us and invest time and energy and a scholarship, that was such a humbling moment in my career. And I’ll be forever grateful."

Original Influencer 

Alison’s journey began with a Support Centre excursion to see Macbeth at her daughter’s Bunbury high school in 2017. Keen to share Shakespeare’s emotional muscle with her own students, Alison started weaving the bard’s story of murder and civil war in remote Scotland into a wide range of class-time activities. 

Her students responded powerfully and, not surprisingly, they loved the live performance of Macbeth even more, leading to a second excursion to watch Bell Shakespeare perform A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

After contacting Bell Shakespeare for acting tips for her students, she was encouraged to apply for a coveted Regional Teacher Mentorship with the company – sponsored by Teachers Mutual Bank.

She was awarded a scholarship in 2017 for the fully funded year-long program, which included a four-day workshop in Sydney – “four of the best days of my life” – and 12 months’ support. 

Three Juliets and adapted scripts

Armed with new techniques, strategies and this support, Alison and her high school students set out almost immediately to produce a favourite, Romeo and Juliet.

“A lot of people said we couldn’t do it. It was like a red rag to a bull,” Alison says. 

“I thought that if Bell Shakespeare can believe in me and my little school – 50 students with special needs – and believe that we can do great things, then I know we can do great things.”

The production featured three Juliets and was a roaring success. There was a follow-up production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with her enthusiastic primary school children a year later. 

To maximise the benefits for her students with special needs, Alison condensed scripts and included some of the different ways used at school to communicate. 

“Some students need alternative forms of communication – so we adapted the scripts to make sure that every student had a role – some on stage, some in production, some as performers. 

“And we wrapped them in Shakespeare beforehand – we played games, looked at photos, made artworks that went along with what we were doing, painted to the soundtrack of Shakespearean movies. Every student had an opportunity to be involved no matter what their disability.”

Ripple effects of success

The benefits flowed in every direction, Alison says. The plays helped students better understand emotions and how to regulate their behaviour, immersed students with sensory needs in rich landscapes, increased language skills, and allowed the children to enjoy new experiences. 

“The narrator of Romeo and Juliet’s reading capacity grew because he just took on the most amazing language Shakespeare offered him and he just tried and tried and tried until he shone. I hope this group of students will remember this and it will be a moment in their lives where they think about themselves and that they can achieve great things.”

As teachers, it made Alison and her colleagues more confident to try new things. 

“It’s empowering for me as a teacher to bring that belief back to school. To have someone believe in us and invest time and energy and a scholarship, that was such a humbling moment in my career. And I’ll be forever grateful.”

More Shakespeare ahead

She adds that “for every ‘giddy aunt what have I started here’ moment, there were also wonderful moments”. Which is potentially why she says she can feel “another Shakespeare coming on”. 

“I think we’re ready now to go again, to look at another Shakespeare and see how we can mould it to suit the students we have at the moment. It’s a growing seed in my brain.”

It’s early days, and she hasn’t decided which Shakespeare play to tackle, but says: “I’d love to perform Macbeth. We have a lot of boys in our school. I’m seeing a lot of tartan in my imagination.”