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Oxfordshire students taught Latin on Saturdays by University receive GCSE results

24 August 2010

The first students to graduate from Oxford University's Latin Teaching Scheme, which aims to teach Latin to local state school students, receive their GCSE results today. No state secondary schools in Oxfordshire currently offer Latin at GCSE level.

The results so far indicate that the students are being rewarded for their efforts, with two students from one local school taking the exam a year early being awarded A* and B grades.

Twenty students from eight Oxfordshire secondary schools receive their Latin GCSE results today after spending two hours every Saturday for the last two years being taught Latin from scratch at Oxford University.

Students were taught by local teachers and lecturers from the Classics Faculty in University lecture halls on Saturday mornings as part of the faculty’s Classics Outreach Programme.

The Oxford Classics faculty outreach programme was set up three years ago and is entirely funded by the faculty. Two groups were set up taking students from local schools who are taught GCSE Latin by local teachers.

Harry Hudson, a student in the programme, said: 'I started Latin without any particular idea of what it would be like. As the course progressed, it got better and better - by the end, I enjoyed the lessons just as much as any mainstream school subject.

‘I am really glad that the option of doing Latin was made available for me, as I am now considering doing it for A-level. It would be great if Latin were taught more in schools, as a serious subject, because I can imagine many people enjoying it, and wanting to take it further. I am extremely glad that I participated in a scheme that created an opportunity which would otherwise have been inaccessible to me.’

Twenty students from eight schools will be sitting the exam this year, the majority of whom undertook no Latin at primary school level. The programme had an extremely low dropout rate, and many of the students enjoyed learning Latin so much that many are going on to study it for A-levels, while Oxford has now widened the scheme to even more pupils.

Cressida Ryan, Classics Outreach Officer at the University, said: 'We are all really proud of these students - most of them had never come across Latin before, but they willingly gave up their Saturday mornings to tackle the huge challenge of learning to GCSE level in two years, and many are now planning to continue it at A level.

‘Having taught Latin up to postgraduate level, I am used to working with intelligent and motivated students, and this group were no exception. They were still soaking it up, asking sensible questions and enjoying the classes, even in the middle of the exams.

'The University is committed to giving as many students as possible the chance to study such a fascinating and important language, and we hope that in years to come more students from all backgrounds will apply to study subjects like Classics and Latin both at Oxford and elsewhere. More state schools than private schools have some Latin, but at examination level, on timetable private schools still have the upper hand. The more that we can do to redress this imbalance, the better.'

Just under 10,000 students will take the Latin GCSE this year, and while demand for Latin courses in schools is high, a lack of Latin teachers is limiting students’ opportunities to take it up, particularly in the state school sector. 56% of the secondary schools offering Latin in the UK are independent schools, and only 13% of state schools across the UK teach Latin, compared to 60% of independent schools.

The Latin Teaching Scheme was designed to seed Classics in local schools rather than replace it, giving students the opportunity to learn Latin in the hope that more groups could be established, and Latin in the state sector could be supported.

David Hudson, father of student Harry Hudson and Headteacher at the Royal Latin School in Buckingham, which takes part in the scheme, said: 'For me it’s a wonderful opportunity for students to get involved in Latin and discover the real benefits that Latin brings to modern day study.

'Over and above that, the scheme Harry was involved in was a really great way of bringing together students from different schools so that they could benefit from each other's learning and expertise but also just learn in a different environment and get a sense of what University education might hold for them.'

Interviews with students and Classics Faculty members are available, including one student who took the exam a year early and earned an A*.

For more information contact Julia Paolitto in the University of Oxford Press Office on 01865 280531 or julia.paolitto@admin.ox.ac.uk.

Notes for Editors:

  • Twenty students from eight Oxfordshire state schools have been learning Latin at the Ioannou Classics Centre. On just two hours a week, over two years, the students have covered the ground needed for the OCR GCSE. The participating schools are Marlborough, Coopers, Bicester Community College, Banbury, Wood Green, Chipping Norton, St Birinus and Cherwell.
  • The CUCD (Council of University Classics Departments) lists 29 member departments in the UK; fifteen of these are members of the Russell Group. Not one of these universities requires students to have Latin in order to start a Classics degree. Students can be put off applying for Classics degrees because they think they need to have prior experience of Latin, or that they’ll be the only ones picking it up. Classics has tried to make the only barrier to taking a course one of ability.
  • Research by the Cambridge Schools Classics Project shows that the recommended number of tuition hours for a GCSE course is 120-140; for Latin, however, the average put in is 272. The effort students make is enormous, and well rewarded. In 2009, 69.2% of students achieved an A or A*. This is despite that fact that it is well recognised that Latin is the hardest GCSE.
  • Over recent decades Latin has disappeared from the curriculum of most secondary schools, and while there is a huge shortage of qualified Latin teachers, demand for Latin in the sector is huge, as many students do some primary-level Latin but then are not given the opportunity to continue at secondary level. Oxfordshire, for example, now has no state secondary schools offering Latin at GCSE and A Level.
  • There are currently 966 secondary schools teaching Latin in the UK, 514 of which are state, 542 of which are independent. With only 27 PGCE places available a year, and up to 70 teachers a year retiring, a dearth of Latin teachers is limiting students’ opportunities to learn Latin, particularly in the state sector .
  • Latin is recognised for supporting the wider curriculum, particularly developing understanding of grammar and sentence structure, improving vocabulary and introducing knowledge of ancient history.
  • Studies have shown that Latin scores heavily in promoting literacy: Children who have studied Latin have higher scores for reading, reading comprehension and vocabulary than those who either studied no language or took a language other than Latin; they achieve higher than average scores on national achievement tests; and some suggest they improve performance on conceptual activities and even several areas of mathematical reasoning (computation, concepts and problem solving) and logical thinking.