At Christ's College, pupils saying they would report a knife rose from 18% to 82%. Guildford Shakespeare Company's eight-week course, and what it cost.

A Guildford theatre company spent eight weeks of last autumn teaching Year 9 pupils about knife crime using Shakespeare, and it has published the numbers on what that did.

Guildford Shakespeare Company ran Put Up Your Swords in six schools between September and November 2025. It reached 183 pupils, aged 12 and 13. The programme cost £27,400. The company’s own report, published in January 2026, sets out what pupils said before it started and after it finished (Guildford Shakespeare Company).

The three shifts it records:

  • pupils who knew that carrying a knife did not make them safer rose from 50% to 83%
  • pupils who knew where to get help rose from 35% to 74%
  • at Christ’s College in Guildford, pupils who said they would report knife crime rose from 18% to 82%

By the end, 78% of pupils said they felt confident to make safer choices, and 100% of the teachers who responded called it worthwhile. The reporting figure is for one school. The other two are programme wide.

Bar chart of Put Up Your Swords results: pupils who knew carrying a knife did not make them safer rose from 50% to 83%; pupils who knew where to get help rose from 35% to 74%; at Christ's College, Guildford, pupils who said they would report knife crime rose from 18% to 82%. 183 pupils took part in six schools over eight weeks, at a cost of 27,400 pounds

How the eight weeks worked

The course is built on the two deaths in the middle of Romeo and Juliet. Pupils stage the fight in which Mercutio and Tybalt are killed, then rewrite it so that neither dies. The company calls this turning a listening exercise into a practical one.

The structure it published, week by week:

  • Week 1: a talk by Dr Mark Prince OBE of the Kiyan Prince Foundation. His son Kiyan, a 15-year-old signed to QPR juniors, was stabbed and killed in 2006.
  • Week 2: drama workshops staging Act 1 Scene 3 with the company’s facilitators
  • Week 3: a professional fight director works on the opening fight scene
  • Week 4: a talk by Martin Cosser of Charlie’s Promise
  • Week 5: a visit to the University of Surrey’s Court of the Future and Crime Scene Room, where pupils examine a simulated crime scene and CCTV, and put Romeo on trial as judge, jury, prosecution and defence
  • Week 6: workshops with Fearless, the youth service run by Crimestoppers
  • Week 7: rehearsals, and rewriting the scenes so Romeo is not banished and nobody is killed
  • Week 8: a performance for parents, classmates and other year groups

One of the six schools brought in its own choir for the final performance. The report gives no pupil names, and none appear here.

Where the money went, and who paid

The report prints the full budget. The largest line is facilitator fees at £13,830, followed by external staffing at £5,630 and administration at £3,000. Transport and coaches took £2,340, monitoring and evaluation £1,500, marketing £540, workshop materials and venues £350, safeguarding £150 and contingency £60. The total is £27,400, which works out at about £150 a pupil.

The funders named are the Community Foundation for Surrey, Guildford Poyle Charities, Guildford Lions, the Wrentham Trust, the Police and Crime Commissioner’s Office, individual donors and the company’s own pub quiz night.

The partners are Charlie’s Promise, the Kiyan Prince Foundation, Fearless and Crimestoppers, Surrey Law School at the University of Surrey, Surrey Police and the Surrey Police and Crime Commissioner’s office.

One caveat on the headline count. The report’s summary page records 183 students and 2,185 participation opportunities, meaning attendances across the eight weeks rather than individual children. Its closing page describes the same figure as “2,185 participants”. The smaller number is the one to trust.

What the local crime record shows

Knife crime is not a large part of Guildford’s recorded crime, and the programme’s own material does not claim otherwise.

Street-level records published by the Home Office show 27 possession of weapons offences within a mile of Guildford town centre in the 12 months to July 2026, out of 4,964 recorded crimes in that area over the same period (data.police.uk). The monthly count never rose above five. “Possession of weapons” covers more than knives, and an offence recorded in the town centre is not necessarily committed by someone who lives there.

That is the point of running the course in Year 9 rather than after something happens. It is prevention work in a district where the problem is still small.

What it means for you

If you teach at a Surrey secondary school. The company says it wants to run the programme in 10 Surrey schools over the next 12 to 18 months, up from six, and asks schools interested in taking part to contact its creative learning producer, Kerrie Driscoll, through the Put Up Your Swords page. It is designed for Year 9 and fits inside English lessons.

If you are a parent. The course is not a one-off assembly. It runs for eight weeks, includes talks by two bereaved parents, and ends in a performance families are invited to. Schools taking part normally tell parents in advance, given the subject.

If you want to support it. The same page takes pledges of support. The programme is funded by grants and donations rather than by schools’ budgets, and the company is a registered charity, number 1139526.

If you want the crime figures for your own street. The Home Office publishes street-level records every month. Enter a postcode at police.uk to see what has been recorded near you.

The company behind it

Guildford Shakespeare Company is marking its 20th anniversary in 2026, counting from its first show in the Castle Gardens in 2006. Its 2026 programme runs from a February adaptation of Dickens through a summer of open-air Shakespeare at the castle to a murder mystery at Hogs Back Brewery from 24 October to 15 November (Guildford Shakespeare Company). We covered the Hogs Back murder mystery when it was announced. If you are driving in for the castle season, the town-centre charges are on our parking in Guildford page.

Put Up Your Swords began as a smaller project in summer 2024, alongside the company’s multi-venue Romeo and Juliet, involving four schools and an awareness forum at Guildford Cathedral. The eight-week course for Year 9 followed in autumn 2025.

Sources

Figures in this article are taken from Guildford Shakespeare Company’s own published report and from Home Office street-level crime data. No pupils are named.