The YAB is made up of 30 young people aged 9-19 from our Associate Schools who want to improve access to Shakespeare and the arts for younger audiences. Every year we meet hundreds of thousands of young people through our education and outreach programmes and the YAB gives them a voice to share their opinions and ideas directly with us as we plan for the future.

Some YAB members recently met with the RSC Board to talk about what they've achieved since the scheme was set up last year and think about next steps. The group shared some of their Shakespeare-inspired school projects, watched a short video about the award-winning Welcombe Hills Shakespeare takeover, and discussed their plans for the Board over the next two years.

Jacqui O'Hanlon, our Director of Education, explains: “Our Youth Advisory Board is made up of young people aged 9–19 from across the country. They are an incredible group who provide us with challenge, advice and inspiration in equal measure.

"In establishing the youth board, we made promises to each other: youth board members promised to help the RSC make the right choices on behalf of young people and to always give the honest opinion of the voices they represent; the RSC promised to listen to the views of the Youth Advisory Board and young people, and to give constructive feedback to them on their ideas and suggestions. We are staying true to those promises but I think the youth board have influenced us in more ways than we could have imagined, including getting us to completely rethink how we communicate with young people. I am very proud to know and work with them.”