Friday 9th March 2012
Congratulations to Sarah Gardner who was crowned classical winner of Next Brit Thing 2012 earlier t...
Read full news story...Thursday 2nd February 2012
Charlie Vasiliou has reached the final of the Young Drummer of the Year competition, after fighting...
Read full news story...Tuesday 31st January 2012
The Department for Education published the school performance league tables this week....
Read full news story...
Staff
Mr H A Killick (BA, ARCM, M.Phil)
Mr J S Hall (BA)
Mr P C Skerratt (BA)
1st-2nd Year: Latin is taken by all pupils, using the Cambridge Latin Course. Caesar no longer leads his troops out of winter quarters or divides all Gaul into three parts. Instead the setting is Pompeii shortly before the eruption of Vesuvius. Progress with the language is fast, and there is plenty of background information on houses, slaves, gladiators, the baths and so on.
3rd Year: Latin and Classics are optional. The Latin course is set in the Roman provinces of Egypt and Britain. The Classics course includes topics like the Greek theatre, the gods, the alphabet, Athenian democracy, Sparta and the Roman army.
4th-5th Year: Latin and Classical Civilisation GCSE courses (using the OCR syllabuses) are chosen by good numbers of pupils. Those taking Latin can also do the Classical Civilisation GCSE at the end of 4th Year. This is an excellent foil to their Latin course, and high grades are generally attained.
The Sixth Form: There is a wide choice under the umbrella of “Classics”. Four modules can be chosen – straight Latin, or Greek, or Ancient History, or Classical Civilisation, or any combination of two or more of these subjects.
• The Latin course includes authors like Virgil, Ovid and the historians Livy and Tacitus.
• In recent years three pupils have started Greek from scratch alongside their A Level Latin course, reaching AS or A-Level in two years. It is surprising how quickly students can master the language sufficiently to read Greek plays and excerpts from the historians Herodotus and Thucydides.
• The Classical Civilisation course is also popular. Over two years the pupils study topics such as:
1. Greek Epic – Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey
2. Roman Satire – Pliny letters, Juvenal satires, Horace satires and Petronius’ hilarious account of Dinner with Trimalchio (did they really have such extravagant dinner parties in those days?)
3. Greek and Roman Comedy – plays of Aristophanes (surely one of the wittiest, most outrageous comic poets of all time) and Menander and Plautus.
4. Roman Epic – Virgil’s Aeneid
• Recently a set chose two Ancient History modules and found the growth of the Athenian empire and the wars in the 5th Century Greece particularly interesting.
Trips and Plays: There have been several extended trips in England or 
abroad over the last few years. The photos of the Theatre at Delphi and the Lion Gate at Mycenae were taken on a trip to Greece in October 2000 when we also visited Athens, the Meteora Monasteries, Olympia, the theatre at Epidavros and Ancient Corinth. In 2003 a small party of staff and students tackled the Hadrian’s Wall walk and covered the 84 miles in six days. In 2006 there was a 3 day expedition along the central section of Hadrian’s Wall. In October 2009 18 students travelled to Italy, staying in Rome and the Naples area (and we even managed to gain entry to the house of Caecilius in Pompeii! See the photograph to the right above). First Year pupils regularly have the opportunity to visit Hadrian’s Wall and the Roman Army Museum at Carvoran in the summer term, and GCSE groups visit other forts along the Wall each year. The School has also put on productions of the Aristophanes plays Frogs, Birds and Wasps, The Rope by Plautus and most recently Antigone by Sophocles.
Why Classics? Study of the Greeks and the Romans is interesting, enjoyable and intellectually demanding. It provides the key to understanding many aspects of the modern world, and opportunities to read and respond to some of the world’s greatest literature. Latin can help you to spell better; to understand the structure of English; to penetrate the mists of technical language (so many of our medical terms come from Latin or Greek!); to learn French, Spanish or Italian more easily; and to grasp more of the history and evolving civilisation of Britain and Europe. Classics will bring you into contact with two great civilisations without the language barriers. Both Latin and Classics combine well with History, English and Modern Languages; and past Classics students have gone on to many different careers in industry, law, accountancy, banking, the civil service, teaching and publishing.
