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Department Reviews

CLASSICS

The Classics department has enjoyed another successful year. Last year’s examination results were impressive with the vast majority of girls achieving the highest grades, and it remains a great pleasure to see our students continuing their study of Classical subjects after they have left College.

Throughout the year we have provided girls with opportunities to compete against other young Classicists. SFC2 pupil Rosalind Cowen built on last year’s success by gaining second prize in the A2 language section of the Cicero-Europa Competition, while Rebecca Ogilvie-Smith is to be congratulated on being highly commended in the SFC1 language test. The Cicero-Europa is an international competition which has entries from France, Spain, Andorra and Italy and the results were first announced by Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, at his presidential address to the AGM of the Joint Association of Classical Teachers. Lower College and Upper College girls were also awarded prizes for their performances in the Gloucestershire Classical Association Latin and Greek Reading Competition.

Girls participate in a range of enrichment activities. Members of the Classics Society attended a useful talk on Ovid’s Amores, given by Professor Gregory Hutchinson of Oxford University, while our keen SFC1 Classicists attended the Classics Conference for Sixth Formers at Cambridge as well as experiencing the Aristotelian catharsis of pity and fear at this year’s Cambridge Greek play, Euripides’ Medea.

We have increased the number of Lower College trips. LC3 Latinists enjoyed the annual visit to the Roman Baths while the Classical Civilisation set took part in an excellent study day at the Ashmolean Museum under the auspices of the Oxford University Classics Outreach Programme, which reminded us of the status of Classical Civilisation as a rigorous academic discipline. Not only did the girls enjoy a feast of pizza and chips at Worcester College but they were also given talks and tours by Oxford academics. With the refurbishment of the Corinium Museum, we were able to inaugurate the LC2 trip to Cirencester and Chedworth Roman Villa. The aims of this trip are to investigate the influence of the Roman conquest in the locality and to put in context the girls’ studies in Latin. Our only disappointment was that former College History teacher Mrs Moore, who is now a volunteer guide at Chedworth, was away on holiday during our visit. Not to be left out, LC1 enjoyed an excellent Design your own Greek Vase Saturday activity under Mr Hepburn’s able creative direction while, as part of the Project Week Arts Festival, they continued their study of Greek myth and theatre with a workshop dramatisation of the story of Persephone, a collaborative venture with the Music and Art departments.

The Classics staff have continued to demonstrate their versatility in their contributions to College life. With regard to the curriculum we have introduced the LC3 Gratin set where girls study both Latin and Classical Greek in the same time allowance as the other sets study Latin. They have relished this challenge and we are delighted that every member of the set has chosen to study one or both Classical languages for GCSE. We have added the Cambridge Latin Course e-learning software to the LC2 programme and staff are involved in delivering lessons in ICT and contributing to Young Enterprise and the Outdoor Education programme. On Saturdays the Starlab course, run in collaboration with the Physics department, remains a popular choice and we have added a course on The Classical Influence to our portfolio. Classics continues to hold its own as a challenging and stimulating discipline which has something for everyone, and fulfils its part in preparing girls to use the skills they have acquired at College to be forces for good in the wider world.

News

Vicky Tuck – Telegraph Articles

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