Classics - Latin and Ancient Greek
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Events
Oxbridge Open Day – May 2008
This year the event was held in Cambridge – which was lucky for us, as the whole of Oxfordshire was covered with a big cloud and East Anglia was due to be beautifully sunny and hot! We took four of our potential Classicists to visit the city and had a fantastic day exploring the colleges, listening to lectures, lunching in Magdalene, visiting the Cast Gallery and talking to current students and Directors of Studies. The four came back thoroughly inspired…and comforted by the fact that Classicists really did seem to be quite normal people!
Corinium, Year 8 – February 2008
Towards the end of February the Year 8s set off for Corinium. After a frustratingly slow journey we arrived, enthusiastic and ready to get stuck into the various activities. The girls enjoyed the Roman Life activities with the Education Officer, where they were able to examine reproduction objects and to discover about life in Roman Corinium. They were impeccably behaved as they explored the museum, taking time to draw the exhibits and make detailed notes for their forthcoming project. They were amazed by the mosaics and worked in (what seemed like) awed silence copying the patterns. It was a great day out and an exciting preview of what they will see on the Hadrian’s Wall trip at the end of the year.
Turkey – October 2007
Here are some pictures from the recent Classics trip to Turkey.
Visit to the Cambridge Greek Play – October 2007
On a brisk sunny day a group of 30 Greek students set out to Cambridge for a fun-filled day of a lecture, a play (this year it was Medea) and sightseeing. Who would have thought that 60 miles could take so long! After the trip where the coach averaged 30 miles an hour, we settled down to listen to the lecture given by one of the Cambridge Classics Lecturers. She discussed the interesting topic of how Euripides created sympathy for Medea in his play and gave us a fitting introduction to the afternoon event. After a lunch in one of the colleges, we wandered round various other colleges, comparing them to ones in Oxford. Finally we went to the Cambridge Arts Theatre to see the tragedy, which was an interesting interpretation, picking up on the fact that one of Medea’s speeches had been used frequently by the Suffragette movement. We all had different opinions about the effectiveness of having the chorus dressed as Suffragettes, but all agreed that it had been an exciting day.
Year 9 visit to Fishbourne and Portchester – September 2007
On a beautifully sunny (but definitely autumnal) day, Year 9 set out to Fishbourne to visit the palace of King Cogidubnus (or Togidubnus) as featured in their text book. It was lovely weather to be out wandering round the Roman garden, sketching the herbs while noting their uses (not everyone was sure what flatulence was, though!). The girls were also impressively focused while drawing the many mosaics in the North Wing of the palace.
At Portchester, girls spent time exploring the Roman fort/Norman castle/prison. They walked round the walls, admiring the fort’s position next to the water and its view of Portsmouth’s spinnaker tower. They still had their trip to Hadrian’s Wall very much in mind and were good at looking out for evidence of the Romans. We finished the day exhausted but with a clearer picture of life in Roman Britain.
Hadrian’s Wall, Year 8 – ‘Summer’ (yeah right!)
2007
The Hadrian’s Wall trip is now a well established residential visit which Year Eights anticipate eagerly. It is a cross-curricular trip which covers Classical history & (a little) Latin, Art, English, Science, Maths, PE and of course PSHCE - communal living and friendship development. The girls were a delight to take and coped heroically with the constant rain. It turned out that activities in the rain were never as disastrous as you thought they would be, just more strenuous!
Highlights were writing poems in gale-force winds, exploring the castle, listening to talks from Justin the Archaeologist at Vindolanda, playing Arcade games in the Newcastle Centre for Life, working out how the Millennium bridge actually blinked (and was it really blinking or winking if you had only one eye?), swimming in the Lido, learning about Roman soldiers from the amazing Jefficus, running around Housesteads (the appropriately named “Windy Village”) solving Maths puzzles, talking constantly about the final episode of “Doctor Who”, watching the group presentations at the last night party and walking along our final stretch of the Wall on the last day.
The staff approached every activity with energy, and it was exciting to see teachers of other subjects becoming interested in the Classical World. Our plan to enthuse everyone with Classics is quickly becoming a reality…first OHS, then THE WORLD! (Mwah ha ha!). The nine Year 12s who accompanied us were wonderful, making tremendous efforts to interact with their groups. They proved especially helpful at bedtimes and in the evenings, organising a quiz and helping with the last-night sketches. We’re looking forward to next year already…
OHS Classical Reading Competition – March 2007
This year the date for the University-organised Competition was moved to a day we could not attend, so we decided to run our own event. Miss Eda Forbes, Head of Classics here for many years, kindly came to judge the competition. All girls attempted to learn by heart a passage from their set book. All the girls who entered the competition did very well and the following girls were the winners:
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The British Museum, Year 10 – February 2007
At the beginning of February 2007, the Classics department took all Year 10s studying Latin to the British Museum. The visit gave us the opportunity to show girls Greek and Roman artefacts in the Museum, enabling them to understand their academic studies in a wider cultural context. We also visited the exhibition ‘The Past from Above’, an extraordinary display of world archaeological pictures taken from the air. The girls were mesmerised by the photographs and agreed that they could have spent all day in the exhibition!
We had decided to do away with worksheets and asked the girls to bring sketchbooks and notebooks instead. The girls then could draw and make notes about anything that interested them. We had suggested various themes on which to focus, such as Warfare, Women and Beauty, which the girls could then use to find relevant objects. We were very impressed with the level of focus displayed by the girls; they really enjoyed settling down in front of a case and sketching until we dragged them away! The girls are now creating a presentation linking their discoveries together.
Hercules Club – 2007
The Year 12 and 13 girls have continued to organise talks for the increasingly popular Hercules Club which meets after school every month. In January we were visited by Bruno Currie who talked about one of our favourite topics: Homer. He had given his lecture the title “Sarpedon, Patroklos and Homeric Invention” and he talked in detail about the Iliad and also the Saga of Memnon.
In February John Penny of Wolfson College came to talk to us about the Language of the Trojans. We were very interested to hear about the various possibilities for the language as many of us had never thought about the fact that the Trojans must have had there own separate language despite them being able to communicate with the Greeks.
GCSE Latin Conference - January 2007
This year the Oxfordshire Area Classical Association GCSE Latin Conference was held at OHS and attended by students from St. Helen’s and St. Katharine’s School and Henry Box School Witney, as well as our own Year 11. The talks were designed to give the GCSE pupils a wider view of the texts that they were currently studying. The first talk was given by Ms Juliane Kerkhecker and Dr Bruno Currie on Vergil’s Aeneid. The two academics from Oriel College presented their talk as a debate between the two main characters of book four, with Bruno playing Dido and Juliane Aeneas! The talk was very entertaining and encouraged the pupils to discuss their opinions of the text (quite ardently in some cases!). The second lecture was given by Dr Bob Cowan of Balliol College. He was discussing Horace and Ovid in a talk entitled “Hoodies in togas and consuls with pitchforks: how the Romans learned to stop worrying and love the countryside”. The final talk was about Pliny and his letters, presented by Professor Gregory Hudson of Exeter College. Both this talk and the second one helped the students to have a clearer picture of the world in which the authors were writing. The morning was a great success.
Sicily – October 2006
During this half-term, the Classics Department took thirty-seven girls (Years 9-13) on a tour round some of the major sites in Sicily. We were, again, incredibly lucky with the weather (shh…the art department might hear!) and enjoyed sun and soaring temperatures. The food was delicious (particularly if you enjoyed pasta al pomodoro con basilico!) and the scenery was beautiful. We were, however, confused about which country we were in as the influences of the island’s invaders were ever present. We heard people speaking Italian while seeing Greek temples, Arab mosques and Roman mosaics. The girls impressed us with their interest in the sites and ability to sing Disney songs round the piano in the evening!!
High points of the trip included the cloisters at Monreale, the unfinished temple at Segesta, the acropolis at Selinunte, the Temple of Olympian Zeus in Agrigento, swimming at the hotel Akrabello, the extensive Roman mosaics at Piazza Armerina, the stone quarries in Syracuse, the Temple-of-Athena-now-Cathedral, the eruptions of “The Etna”, the freezing cold water in the Alcantara Gorge, swimming on the beach at Naxos, The Greek/Roman theatre at Taormina… and, of course, our lovely guide and driver!
Metamorphoses – October 2006
After
last year’s spell binding experience of listening to Hugh Lupton and Daniel Morden tell the
stories of the Trojan War, we couldn’t resist taking the girls to see their version of Ovid’s
Metamorphoses. The performance contained some of the most famous myths from Ovid’s stories
about transformation and again held us mesmerised. Our favourite tales included Echo & Narcissus,
Midas, Semele, Baucis & Philemon and Orpheus. The Year 13s particularly enjoyed hearing about
Orpheus as they have been reading that very story in Latin. The Year 9 Greek set were inspired by
the experience to create a mythological Greek alphabet.
Year 9 visit to Fishbourne and Portchester - September 2006
Thursday 21st September– a lovely sunny day! – we took the whole of Year 9 to visit the palace where the story of their Latin course book (Cambridge Latin Course) is set for the next few months.
They were intrigued to find that the king, Cogidubnus, was now to be called Togidubnus – scholars now think that we have always misread the name in the manuscript, reading a C when there was actually a T. The Palace at Fishbourne has just had a massive face-lift, with a now completed building programme and refurbishment of the housing for the mosaics. Girls were their usual interested selves, looking, listening and sketching, with some good running up and down hills at lunch time.
At Portchester we enjoyed the bracing location and the girls thought hard about the differences between this fort and that at Housesteads which they visited last June. We also climbed the Tower of the Castle and had a wonderful view over land and sea.
All in all, a great day. Many thanks to the three form teachers who joined the Classics staff for the visit.
Past Trips
Hadrian's Wall, Year 8 - Summer 2006
Year 8 was the department’s next enterprise, with the whole year group setting off for Hadrian’s Wall on June 26th for a week’s residential study visit. We had a wonderful week, very busy and full of varied activity. The weather smiled most of the time – our one cloud burst was during our hour-long talk form the archaeologist Justin at Vindolanda, so we had a chance to try out our coats and hoods!
The over–arching study emphasis for the week in general was English creative writing with experience and evidence based in Roman archaeology and much artistic sketching. We also linked Classical and later history, studying Bede and Cuthbert as well as the Romans, visiting Durham (choral evensong and a tour of the Cathedral) and Jarrow (we saw the earliest stained glass in England).
Roman sites visited were Vindolanda (the extraordinary writing tablets now in the British Museum), Housesteads (best Roman latrines in Northern Europe!) and of course the Wall itself.
We enjoyed several lovely walks – more time and we would have walked more. The grounds of the Castle where we stayed offered us rounders and the river to walk beside, and trees not to climb.
For science we visited the Centre for Life in Newcastle where girls had fun among the displays but also spent an hour in a lab experimenting on extracting DNA from kiwi fruit.
It was a memorable and enjoyable visit, full-time activity for the nine teachers who accompanied the visit - and for the Year 12 students who came as our helpers. They were absolutely wonderful and we are all very grateful for their help, as well as sure that they too enjoyed the experience. More next year…
Greece - October 2005
During this half-term, the Classics Department took thirty-six girls (Years 9-13) on a tour round some of the major Greek sites. We had a fantastic time, enjoying hot and sunny weather, tasty food and beautiful scenery. The girls were impeccably behaved and we had many compliments from passers-by.
High points of the trip included the National Archaeological Museum (when it finally opened!), the little statues of Vravrona, the peace of Sounion, the temple of Apollo at Delphi, running a race at Olympia, the Lion Gate at Mycenae, swimming in the sea at Tolon, the folk night at Hotel Minoa, the Corinth canal and the Mycenaean megaron at Eleusis.
Here are some photos of our adventures…
Click on an image to open it in a new browser window
Hadrian's Wall, Year 8 - Summer 2005
Corinium, Year 8 and Year 10 - Easter 2005
Italy - October 2004
40 girls, 4 teachers and 6 other adults (including Mrs Mayr-Harting and Miss North) went off to Italy to visit Rome and the area around Vesuvius. We enjoyed fantastic weather, beautiful sites and delicious ice cream! Here are some pictures of our experiences.
Personnel
Mrs Deborah Bennett (Head of Department) teaches both Latin and Greek (Years 8 to 13). She enjoys metre and reading Greek and Latin aloud, Greek prose composition and planning Classical visits. When she is not planning Classical visits, she is planning Rock festivals.
Mrs Emily Bowden, the teacher formerly known as “Miss Scarlett”, teaches both Latin and Greek to year 8 to 13 (full time). She enjoys Latin prose composition, Greek tragedy and going on Mrs Bennett’s Classical visits. She also takes part in many musical activities and repeats the daily mantra “I’m in the Classics department, NOT the Music department”.
Miss Regina Fijalkowski teaches Latin and French to year 8 to 12 (part time). She particularly enjoys Latin verse literature and French cinema, and is looking forward to the next Classical visit. She likes to sing hymns in lots of different languages.
Facilities
We have three well-equipped rooms, including one specifically for Greek and sixth-form teaching. We have a computer with an advanced Greek font in one of the classrooms and we regularly take girls to the ICT rooms. Next year we shall have a data projector installed in the main teaching room.
Greece - October 2005
Curriculum
Latin and Ancient Greek are not in the least dead at OHS: the department offers a colourful and vigorous introduction to the Classical world encompassing both language and culture, reinforcing both with lectures, visits and performances.
Every girl in the school learns Latin for two years (Years 8 & 9) and has the opportunity to make innumerable discoveries: the logic of Latin grammar, the truth about the last day of Pompeii, the story of Achilles and Troy and the Wooden Horse (timeo Danaos et dona ferentes), the upbringing and inspiration of the poets Horace and Vergil, why the Romans loved to imitate the Greeks, how the Roman army machine conquered the known world (including Britain) and of course how Latin feeds into the English and romance languages. By the end of Year 9 girls will have come across all of these and more, thinking about the foundation which the classical world has given to Western thought and science. Latin GCSE is an option chosen by many girls since they perceive it as both interesting in itself and also excellent as foundation backing for numerous courses of study.
If girls want to discover about the language and culture of Homer, Plato, Sophocles and Herodotus they may choose to study Ancient Greek in Year 9, choosing again after one year if they wish to study the subject for GCSE. To study Greek is to become part of a group of enthusiasts: the number is small but the rewards of this fascinating subject are great.
In the Sixth Form we offer full Latin and Greek AS and A2 and we find that a small but well-motivated cohort continue to A level, and that several of them will study Classical subjects at university.
Italy - October 2004
Extra-curricular
We regularly host and attend Classical lectures at GCSE and A level. In addition we have an active Classical Society organised by girls in Year 12 and 13. Year Seven have their own Classics Club run by Miss Scarlett. We meet on a weekly basis and enjoy such pursuits as making up our own plays of the Greek myths, singing Latin carols and designing Greek vases!
The department is keen to give pupils experience of sites and museums in England. Currently there are visits in place for Year 8 (Hadrian’s Wall), Year 9 (Fishbourne and Portchester and Roman Bath) and Year 10 (the British Museum).
We also organise theatre visits for Classical productions both in the original languages and in English.
LATIN: Years 8 and 9
The study of Latin Language begins in Year 8 with the Cambridge Latin Course I. This exciting course follows the life of Pompeian citizens in the months before the great eruption of Mount Vesuvius which destroyed their city. It uses archaeological evidence discovered at Pompeii to give pupils a fascinating insight into the Roman world. In Year 9 we move on to book 2 of the course where the story moves to Roman Britain and Alexandria. In both books there is an abundance of reading material, cultural topics and grammar. We also add a more traditional approach to grammar learning and some sentence writing. You can visit the CLC website (see Website Resources) if you want to find out more about the course.
Hadrian's Wall
GREEK: Year 9
Every year at least 10 girls choose to learn Greek for Year 9. This year we have 23 girls! We use the Athenaze course which follows the life of the farmer Dikaeopolis and his family. The course also looks at the rise of Persia and Athens as powerful forces. Girls really enjoy working in a new alphabet: it is very useful when wanting to communicate in secret!
LATIN and GREEK: Years 10–11 (GCSE)
Latin and Greek are the only subjects apart from English where girls can read and study LITERATURE before the sixth form. This is very exciting!
There are TWO sets of Latin at GCSE and generally about 40 girls take it. Language work continues and we follow the OCR syllabus (web address in the Website Resources) which shares the emphasis between language and literature. Girls do not have course work. There is a Defined Vocabulary list which is both very hard work but also re-assuring.
Literature study begins in February of Year 10 with the verse set book: starting at this point enables girls to revise for a proper literature exam in the summer; this gives them confidence. We complete the second set book by the end of the spring term of Year 11.
Latin GCSE is an excellent preparation for many sixth form courses: the language work is detailed, requiring accuracy and firm application, and the nature of the subject is recognised. Its relevance to the humanities is obvious but it is also a good support subject for the aspiring scientist.
We organise Classics trips abroad to Italy and Greece for girls in Year 10 and above. The next one is due to take place in October 2005.
Year 10 Visit The Ashmolean Museum
LATIN and GREEK: Years 12–13 (AS/A2)
Dear Student Reader,
The transition from GCSE to working at AS and A2 level contains no nasty surprises but plenty of new opportunities. The continued study of language does not change direction but becomes ever more sophisticated and the intricacies and verbal usage often give an insight into prevailing cultural attitudes. If “otium” means “leisure” and “negotium” means “business” which did a Roman think was the natural condition? Why does Latin use “in matrimonium ducere” for a man marrying but “nubere”+ dative for a woman?
The prospect of translating continuous English prose into Latin or Greek seems daunting at first but to find, as you will do with practice, that you can do this accurately and then with an increasing confidence that what you are writing is at least an approximation to the Latin that Caesar or the Greek that Xenophon wrote is a heady feeling. Not only is this a new challenge but it also enormously helps your ability to translate what Greeks and Romans wrote, which is your only way into their hearts and minds.
The years of reading synthetic Latin and Greek are now past and in years 12&13 you will read selections from many of the major authors: Caesar, Livy, Tacitus, Horace, Ovid and Virgil in Latin and Homer, Euripides, Plato, Xenophon, Herodotus and Thucydides in Greek. Some of these you will study in depth as set texts for examinations, some you will read in preparation for unseen translation examinations and some for pure enjoyment but all will raise as many questions about life in these ancient societies as they will answer. Often the remaining evidence is tantalisingly fragmented but to attempt to reconstruct how these peoples lived, what they thought, what moral values they had, what their intellectual interests were, what questions they asked about the physical world and what their answers were, what caused their wars is a wonderful exercise of the imagination based on historical evidence.
You will have 7 lessons in both languages in year 12 & 13; there will be one language task every week and preparation before each lesson in which you read Latin or Greek. The AS examination consists of three papers each one hour in length: in paper 1 you will answer two context questions on two set texts, which are similar to but more detailed than at GCSE; in paper 2 you are required to translate passages from the prepared set texts and to write an essay on one of them; in paper 3 you translate a piece of Latin unseen. At A2 there are also three papers; a set text paper which extends your understanding of literature, a further unseen translation paper and a language paper (for details see the OCR syllabus)
Most people find the experience of being taught in a small group hugely enjoyable and it certainly offers plenty of opportunities for interesting digressions of every kind imaginable!
VIVAMUS ATQUE AMEMUS…..
GAUDEAMUS IGITUR…
Caroline Mayr-Harting