For the past four years, Classics for All has been running Continuing Professional Development summer courses in Greek and Latin for teachers at state secondary schools and colleges. Led by trainers including Steve Hunt (PGCE Classics course lead at the University of Cambridge) and Steven Kennedy (Head of Classics at Harrow School), the courses offer teachers the chance to grapple with Greek, dust down their Latin and get familiar with GCSE and A Level set texts.
They originally took place in-person at Harrow School, however, due to restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the summer school adopted an online format for the first time in 2020 and intends to do the same for 2021. Demand for these courses is growing and in August 2020, we more than doubled our uptake, reaching over 90 teachers from 70 different schools, with a geographical scope ranging from Perth and Kinross in the north of Scotland to Brighton and Lyme Regis on the South Coast. (At our in-person school in 2019, our courses were attended by 42 teachers from 33 different schools).
We offered six courses in 2020, which took place over 4-days via Zoom: Beginners’ Latin and Intermediate Latin, Beginners’ Greek and Intermediate Greek, Teaching Latin and Greek Literature at GCSE, and for the first time this year, Teaching Classical Civilisation at GCSE. Feedback was extremely positive, with many teachers valuing the opportunity to gain new teaching ideas and to discuss topics with colleagues. Several commented on how the courses boosted their confidence teaching Latin and Greek in the classroom:
“I now feel motivated to go ahead and launch a Latin or Greek after-school club in my school with a view to putting it into whole class teaching next year. This training was targeted and relevant and just exactly what I was hoping for.” Primary teacher from The Flitch Green Academy, Essex
“I will now be able to confidently design and teach lessons to Year 7 from September. 200 children will be introduced to Latin this academic year which is very exciting!” Secondary teacher from Priory School, Lewes
“I have learned more over these four days than during my Ancient Greek language module at University. I am absolutely stunned at how well the online sessions were delivered, and how fun online learning of Greek could be!” Greek Beginners participant
Courses are entirely free, with priority given to those teaching in schools in areas of socio-economic disadvantage, where the numbers of pupils eligible for Pupil Premium (PP) funding are above average. We are particularly grateful for the continued support of Harrow School, without which we would be unable to provide this training opportunity for so many teachers.
For more information about our 2021 Harrow Summer School, running online from 23 - 27 August 2021, please visit the Continuing Professional Development section of our Special Initiatives page.