The Shakespeare Schools Festival is a unique arts-education charity which offers young people, from a diverse collection of backgrounds, the opportunity and support to perform abridged productions of Shakespeare's most famous plays in their local professional theatre.

As well as the Schools Festival for 11- 16 year olds, SSF also launched the Shakespeare Youth Festival in February 2008, which gave 16-21 year olds the opportunity to set-up their own theatre company to stage, direct, design and perform an abridged Shakespeare play. 2008 also saw the launch of Shakespeare 24, a worldwide celebration of Shakespeare on April 23rd, Shakespeare's birthday.