When I first came across the Classical Association tweet advertising the NEC bursary for teachers, I must admit, I had my doubts. As if I had the time to do an actual A level. Who was I kidding? And yet something about it tugged at me and wouldn’t let go. I’d always had a casual interest in the Greek myths – a leftover from a bookish childhood, perhaps – but that passing curiosity had deepened into something far more serious when we started writing our English curriculum and David Didau introduced me to Simon Armitage’s translation of the Odyssey. I’d already listened to and greatly enjoyed Stephen Fry’s Mythos and Heroes the previous year, which felt like visiting with old, beloved friends. But this, this was something different, something vast and circuitous and difficult. It got into my dreams, absorbed my thoughts, at once deeply familiar and intensely strange. Once I read Armitage’s dramatization, I picked up Emily Wilson’s translation and I was hooked. I dithered and doubted my way through an application for the bursary, convinced myself there was no way I would get it… until suddenly an email appeared in my inbox saying quite the opposite. And so began eighteen months of fascinating, challenging study.

Of all the things I’d hoped I’d get from studying an A level in Classical Civilisation, probably the least expected, the most surprising, has been the heady joy of falling back in love with academic study. 30 years since I last took A levels, and here I am, properly nerding out over Homer and Virgil and, of all things, vase paintings. I have countless tabs open all the time, all filled with little segue ways and rabbit holes in Classical Studies, whether the social purpose of Attic tragedy, or a virtual reality 3D ‘map’ of Augustan Rome, or modern performances of comedies in ancient Greek. My wall above my desk is papered with post it notes and handwritten reminders, with dates, names of battles, lists of prescribed sources, quotations – one in Latin – and more recommendations for books than I’ll ever be able to read. Immersing myself in this vast, vibrant world has brought technicolour back to my thoughts, and reinvigorated my intellectual life in ways that I honestly couldn’t have imagined. In the same way some people do crosswords, or listen to complex music, or go for a run, studying Classics has become my way to unwind, something I look forward to each day and find myself impatient to get back to when the real world inevitably intrudes. I’ve finally found ‘my thing’.

And it strikes me in teaching that we so often lose our ‘thing’. It’s hard to remember our passion for our subject, or for intellectual study itself, when Year 9 won’t stop dabbing, or Year 11 constantly shout out, or Year 8 are just being very Year 8. It gets even harder when you add the duties, the pressures, the paperwork, the data, the results, the policies. Teaching is often cognitively tiring, but it’s not always intellectually stimulating. I would finish long school days emotionally and cognitively wired and wound up, but it wasn’t until I started the Classics A level that I realised the value in doing something intellectually stimulating as a way to unwind.

Professional well-being so often focuses on our physical wellbeing, whether that’s afternoon yoga or going for a walk. And whilst those things are certainly helpful, how often do we focus on our minds, on our intellectual, interior life itself? It’s certainly been my experience after twenty odd years in the profession that my inner life, my thoughts and my mind, have all too often been squeezed by my work. Sometimes that’s been incredibly exciting and enriching, but sometimes it’s because I can’t stop worrying about whether 9×3 have made enough progress, or if a certain lesson will go better tomorrow than I fear. And that’s a quick road to burnout. Turns out, doing more with my brain, finding something stimulating and interesting and different is the best way to turn off those unhelpful worries. Despite twenty years in teaching, this has been a revelation. In the eighteen months since I started the A level, I’ve found it easier, not harder, to switch off from work. Half an hour of Greek tragedy in an evening has made a far greater difference to my mental wellbeing than scrolling on my phone ever could.

And so, as we approach the summer term, and – eventually – the summer holidays, what if you found your thing? Or focused on it more, if you’re lucky enough to have already found it. What if you found that thing that doesn’t feel like more work, that invigorates instead of diminishes, that fills your cup when school has emptied it, several times over – whether that’s pottery or South Asian novels or quantum mechanics or the life cycle of certain kinds of jellyfish? And if you think your thing might be studying Classical Civilisation (and why wouldn’t it be?!), I urge you to apply for the bursary with the Classical Association – you never know what treasures you might find, deep in this labyrinth. If we want to be the best teachers, and the best people that we can, it’s time to dare to know.  

To find out more about our bursary scheme with the National Extension College, click here and apply now using this form.

Devised and hosted by the CA’s Outreach Officer, a former schoolteacher herself, the event was a successful example of collaboration and knowledge exchange across educational phases, with both academics and teachers presenting.

Talking about gender equality has become an increasingly difficult topic that teachers are having to tackle head on at the front lines in our classrooms with little guidance or support. We know from platforms like Everyone’s Invited and the investigations of Rape Crisis UK that 90% of school age girls face sexual harassment by their peers which often goes unchallenged. We also know that there has been a concerning rise in misogynistic content which is being pushed towards young men online.

In this context, I have seen how students are shaken and want to try and understand the historical roots of how and why misogyny exists in the world, but don’t know where to start. Both male and female students often don’t feel empowered to talk about these issues amongst their peers for fear of being ‘cancelled’ on social media. For many young people, these issues seem so prevalent and systemic that they are starting to accept it as part of life.

As I teach the three subjects of Classics, History and Politics, I saw an interesting opportunity to lead on showing students how present issues are often the remnants of long shadows from the past. I was keen to find a new way to help kickstart conversations on gender equality in schools, using Classics as a way to stimulate curiosity from students who don’t necessarily study the subject. And so, the Athena Society was born!

Athena Society gives the opportunity for students to explore historical time periods and issues beyond the school curriculum. We can uncover surprising new stories that show women displaying creativity and resistance despite the boundaries imposed upon them, as well as men who have supported and helped change stereotypes. It is a space outside of lessons in a relaxed atmosphere where students set the agenda themselves, deciding on research presentations they want to do, knowing that there is a trusted adult who can guide them through sometimes difficult conversations. Here young people are able to physically listen to each other and to think critically about the media content they consume, through learning new historical information that helps them to understand where modern political issues stem from.

Students who take part in Athena Society feel empowered with knowledge and skills to ask new questions about media content and build a positive ethos across the school environment. By bringing historical context to popular culture, students can get thinking about gender equality and ways they can be actively involved in positive societal change. Changing young minds and helping them to break stereotypes by seeing their unjust historical roots is, in my view, the key to continuing the cause for gender equality. Both young men and young women have to see the importance of this and with student-led projects like Athena Society we must strive to be optimistic for a better future.

Athena Society started as a simple after school conversation in a classroom with a few students after a tragic event, but I hope to build a movement that keeps the question of gender equality alive in schools by researching historical stories and interrogating popular culture. We have grown to include students from across year groups in the school and hosted our inaugural conference in February 2023 inviting local schools to collaborate and listen to guest speakers. We began creating informative Instagram posts @athenasocietyofficial to further our reach and set up a website www.athenasocietyofficial.com including merchandise with our fabulous logo designed by one of our students. We are also engaging with our local MP, taking part in focus groups in Parliament and raising matters of women’s safety in the local area.

Our latest development has been to create the Athena Society Journal, launched on International Women’s Day 8^th March 2024. It contains articles submitted by students on topics they have researched on feminist themes through time. The first issue tackled topics as varied as Greek mythology and Renaissance art, to the French Revolution and Cold War with a global span including Germany, Vietnam and Argentina too.

We hope that this resource will help schools across the country to start their own gender equality conversations, using Classics as an interesting way to bring students into the discussion. To join us, use the contact form at www.athenasocietyofficial.com and encourage your students to send in their ideas for our next issue of the Journal!

My colleague and I enter the classroom as quietly as possible. A year 7 ‘nurture’ set – a group of children who normally struggle to access mainstream lessons – are entirely focused on their teacher as she stands at the front of the classroom, arms aloft, a copy of The Odyssey clutched in her hand. As we arrive, the class are reading the play together, deciding how key lines should be delivered and changing their tone or pace or volume to match. There’s a brief discussion about Odysseus’ character and how Penelope might speak as a Queen to a beggar in the palace and then the class chorus together, bringing this oldest of stories to life again. Penelope is cautious, Odysseus charming and eloquent and we are all caught in the spell of Homer’s tale.

For anyone working in education in the past fifteen years, the slogans ‘Ambition’ and ‘Challenge’ will be all too familiar. But enacting that ambition and challenge in our day-to-day teaching and curriculum is very difficult, and it’s all too easy to fall into the mistaken belief that ‘Challenge’ means ‘boring’ or lecturing students or making it too hard for some.

We began writing our new English curriculum in 2021 under the leadership of David Didau, our senior lead for English. Our primary goal was to enable our schools – all of which are in predominantly deprived areas – to deliver a curriculum in English that truly was ambitious and challenging, but which was also interesting and exciting and alive. One of the best ways we have found to do this has been through Classical texts.

Our KS3 curriculum starts with Year 7 exploring our ‘Ancient Origins’, as we saw, taking in Gilgamesh and The Odyssey, as well as myths such as Icarus and Daedalus, Theseus and the Minotaur, and Persephone. We deliberately start students on familiar territory; with Ancient Civilisations in the KS2 History curriculum, as well as the abiding popularity of Greek myths in children’s literature, many of them have at least heard of the myths and associated worlds. From here we can explore the bigger and more abstract concepts such as heroism, story structure and imagery as very much an introduction to English at ‘big school’.

But it’s not just the heavyweight standards. We also interweave more modern, disruptive readings of Classical stories – we include extracts from Atwood’s the Penelopiad, as well as Duffy’s infamous ‘Medusa’ poem. We want students to see that these ancient texts are not just dry, dusty tomes but living, vibrant stories that writers are still rewriting and rethinking. It’s also a fantastic opportunity for students to try out their own creative writing and ability to think critically about these ‘foundational’ stories. A key aspect of our curriculum is to empower students as critics and scholars, to question and discuss how women are treated, how Penelope might have felt, whether we think Odysseus really is an admirable man. Modern discussions and reimaginings of classical stories are an excellent way to do exactly this.

Ancient stories and writers are the backbone of our curriculum: we study Cicero and Rhetoric in Year 7, Aristophanes in Year 8, Sophocles and Sappho in Year 9. If we seek to induct students into the conversation of English Literature, then we must include the texts that inform that conversation. Indeed, our feedback from teachers has been how useful and enlightening they have found it, deepening their own appreciation of Shakespeare, and illuminating references, characters, and ideas for their students.

And this isn’t just about enjoyment and engagement, although those are certainly important. A cornerstone of our approach has been disciplinary equity – giving all students the equitable opportunity to study ‘great’ literary texts, because so often so many groups of students are erased from our discipline, whether English or Classical Civilisation, before they even have the chance to get started.

Before writing this curriculum, I’d never studied classical texts in detail. I’m a medievalist by training so the stories and characters are very familiar, but it was like listening to conversations through a wall – I got the gist, but I missed the nuance. With the incredibly generous bursary from the Classical Association to study an A level in Classical Civilisation, via the National Extension College, the door to this vibrant, fascinating world has finally opened for me. For those of us who teach, it is imperative that we open that door for our students so that they too can add their voices, opinions and words to the great debate.

If you’re interested in finding out more, here’s a link to our curriculum which we have made freely available online: OAT English (ormistonacademiestrust.co.uk)

Nearly a decade ago, several of us at the University of Reading decided to find out via a re-enactment experiment: we made a replica Roman school (complete with papyri, tablets, costumes, etc.), persuaded a group of local schoolchildren to act like Roman children, and sat down to try teaching them the way Roman teachers would have done. Everyone was surprised at the result: glorious fun combined with high-quality learning.

We discovered that Roman mathematics is addictive, with some alarmingly young future bankers getting hooked on calculating compound interest in Roman numerals (maybe it’s not simply avarice, but the lure of the dried beans used as counters?). And that the beginners’ Latin exercises used by imperial-period Greek speakers can introduce modern children to a new language with laughter, fun and teamwork while still offering a serious intellectual challenge. Ostraca (a.k.a. broken flowerpots) are more useful as a writing surface than we had expected, and children learn surprisingly fast how not to get ink everywhere (though the occasional spill does happen, of course). And the ancient schoolroom setting works for a wide range of ages: a sixteen-year-old needs to be given different tasks from an eight-year-old, of course, but since everyone is taught individually that is easy to achieve even when pupils of very different ages are in the room at the same time (as was often the case in antiquity). Once we had developed a suitable range of exercises, it turned out that even adults (and at the other end of the spectrum children as young as two) could learn from and enjoy the experience of being a pupil in an ancient school.

In fact we all learned so much, and had so much fun, that what had been intended as a one-off event was repeated yearly on campus and then started branching out to local schools who wanted to involve more children than could easily be accommodated in our department. Last summer we registered the Reading Ancient Schoolroom as a charity with the goal of spreading the opportunity of experiencing Roman education to as many pupils and teachers as possible. Our transition to charitable status has been funded by the AHRC, with enough extra money that this year (until 15^th May 2024) we can even offer free or reduced-cost events to a few schools that cannot afford to pay what it costs to produce an ancient schoolroom. So if your school would like to turn a classroom into ancient Rome for a day, please get in touch with us! More information is available at www.readingancientschoolroom.com.

The Reading Ancient Schoolroom is run by Eleanor Dickey (Professor of Classics at the University of Reading and author of Learning Latin the Ancient Way and Stories of Daily Life from the Roman World) and Nadin Marsovszki (Classics Research Associate at the University of Reading), who can be contacted at E.Dickey@reading.ac.uk or nadinmarsovszki76@gmail.com.

Iuvenalis Pictures, a creative body which aims to bring classical literature to a modern audience while promoting the study of Ancient Greek, has just released the world’s first feature length film entirely in spoken Ancient Greek (with the reconstructed pronunciation of 405 BCE and in multiple dialects – Attic and Doric).

The script is based on “The Frogs” by Aristophanes, “Alcestis” by Euripides, “Symposium” by Plato, and “Battle of the Frogs and Mice” and, following its premiere in Athens in September, it is now freely available to enjoy on YouTube, thanks to its sponsor, Elliniki Agogi. The entire film is provided with an original soundtrack and is embellished by some sand animations.

Embark on the un-frog-gettable journey to the Underworld here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr9bHa3xrV8

For further information, you can visit their website: https://frogsthefilm.com/en

βρεκεκεκὲξ κοὰξ κοάξ

Check out the trailer (with English subtitles): https://youtu.be/PEuVM4vI8Do

Starring: Laurens van der Wiel, Arthur Oosthout, Wim Nijs, Maxime Maleux, Victoria Dabo, Gorik Rutten, Wouter Mercelis, Reuben Pitts, Andy Peetermans, Alexandra Vereeck, Martijn Corstjens, and Naomi Commissaris

Sand art stories: Colette Dedyn

Original music: Nick Van Elsen

Written for the screen and directed by Thibaut Lejeune

Artefacts in Action is a small business I have recently set up, offering in-house workshops to primary schools. I firmly believe in the power of objects to tell a story, and to bring alive a world that no longer exists – one without electricity and where children wrote on wax, not whiteboards. It was a lovely librarian at my sons’ school who suggested the idea to me, after she saw me in action, giving a mini handling session and presentation to the children in Years 5 and 6. The experience of enlightening a sea of faces brought me alive; it was a room full of children who had a thirst for learning, for gaining knowledge. Although I teach Classics at secondary level part-time, the workshop suddenly seemed a wonderful way to keep my passion alive on my days off, but more importantly, transmit that passion to others.

As a Classics teacher with experience in both the secondary and primary sector, I feel that I have the knowledge and enthusiasm to impart to children of all ages. I have always loved seeing pupils’ responses when they realise they are holding something that could be 2,000 years old. Encouraging pupils to look at objects and guess what they are made of, I relish hearing their findings as to what each item can tell us about the ancient world. Why did actors wear masks on stage? Did wealthy women really do the weaving? How could they make a dice out of bone? By allowing them to handle objects, I hope to transport them into another world, and to bring that world alive.

By offering the workshops to primary schools in London and the surrounding area, I hope to provide a service that can support teachers in their work. The workshops are intended to last only an hour, thus allowing pupils to continue their usual routine of timetabled lessons either side. It also means that the cost is cheaper than transporting pupils off-site to local museums, and more affordable than workshop providers who require a whole day.

I am passionate about Classics and have visited both Greece and Rome many times over the years, collecting artefacts and resources as I go. I studied Classical Civilisation as a degree at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne with the enigmatic Dr Peter Jones, before entering the world of publishing as an editor of illustrated non-fiction books. I quickly realised that the world of teaching was calling me, so I studied A-level Latin in the evenings while working, before embarking on my PGCE at King’s College, London. Since then, I have worked as a Classics teacher in Hertfordshire, Newcastle, London and Oxford. When my career took an unexpected turn to be a Form Tutor to Year 6 pupils, I used every opportunity to enthuse my pupils about the Classical world, running a weekly Classics hobby, ‘Groovy Greeks’, and dressing up as a goddess on regular occasions. I have run school trips to Greece and Rome, and closer to home I have taken pupils to museums, Greek tragedy performances and lectures, as well as to a pottery café to experience the world of Greek vase painting first hand. I firmly believe that getting involved in the world of the ancient Greeks and Romans in an active way is a wonderful way to enthuse, educate and instil memories.

I adored my own Classics teacher at school, and I hope that through my new venture I can hand down the knowledge and inspiration that she gave to me.

Find out more www.artefactsinaction.co.uk and / or email info@artefactsinaction.co.uk.

If there happened to be a magical Autism Fairy, who flew around the world granting wishes and avoiding eye contact, most of us probably wouldn’t have ‘awareness’ on our wish-list. Instead we’d be wishing for something much more practical and less dangerous. ‘Awareness’, for autistic people, would be just the sort of double-edged wish that tripped up Phaethon and Midas.

Most autistic people – myself included – have spent their lives ‘masking’, or trying to pass as non-autistic. We have elaborate strategies, developed over decades, which are designed to deflect awareness – that’s one reason why so many autistic people are accomplished actors and performers.

Let me offer you a window into some of my own everyday strategies, so that you can see how hard I work to avoid awareness. 

If, Dear Reader, we were to meet in real life – perhaps at a conference, over coffee – I would be trying very hard to control your awareness of me, while at the same time being hyper-aware of you. First I would be aware of your mannerisms, and within a few seconds of meeting you I’d start mimicking them. Do you blink several times a minute? I’d do that. Do you jiggle your leg when you start talking? I’d start doing that too. Do you raise an eyebrow to indicate that you’re being sarcastic? Me too. Transformation can be a defence, as Ovid knew better than most. If I act just like you, it will take you longer to notice that I’m really quite different.

At the same time I’d be working on my facial expressions. My expression is naturally quite blank, but people find that disconcerting, so I have to arrange my face into the correct expression for the circumstances. That’s tougher than you might think, because it requires me to keep up with the content and tone of the conversation and react accordingly. I’m always just a beat behind, no matter how much I practise. Disguises aren’t easy to maintain – except maybe for Zeus…

I’d also be struggling to remember the small-talk rules. Don’t be too honest; don’t be too personal; don’t be too serious; don’t be too arrogant. If you mention the weather to me, you won’t be expecting me to look up the forecast on my phone, and you’ll probably feel awkward if I do so. If you ask me how my day is going, you’re anticipating a light and maybe flippant answer, not an itemised list. If you praise my work, you’ll expect me to say something humble or compliment you in return, instead of agreeing with you that I’m brilliant. I’ve always felt a lot of sympathy for poor Arachne – if I was good enough at something to rival the gods, I would have fallen into exactly the same mythical trap.

I do know how to say all the right things, but I live in fear that I’ll miss a social cue and something will slip past me. So throughout our conversation I’d be very tense, and I’d be concentrating very hard.

The last thing I would want is for that Autism Fairy to wave a magic wand over our table and cancel out all my hard work. My mask is how I function in a hostile world, and I’m not ready to lose it. Yes, it would be nice if the world were a less hostile place: but until that happens, ‘awareness’ is firmly off my wish-list.

If I did have access to a bit of magic, I’d have a few ideas on how to use it, and they would involve the very opposite of awareness. In fact, my problem during our hypothetical conference meet-up is too much awareness. I’m constantly aware of you being aware of me, and it’s exhausting. What I need, at that moment and in that place, is a quiet space where I can be unobserved for a while, to recharge my social batteries before taking on the world again.

Sadly I don’t have a magic wand – but I have discovered lately that some people and organisations are willing to listen to what autistic people in Classics want and need, and that’s pretty close to magic.

Last year I joined forces with other neurodivergent classicists – students, academics, school teachers and museum professionals – to put together a panel on Neurodiverse Classics at the Classical Association Conference in Swansea, with the objective of raising the profile of neurodivergent people in Classics. Our theme was ‘Constructive Connections’, and the connections we made there were very constructive indeed. 

An important outcome of our activities was the opportunity to have some involvement in the organisation of future Classical Association Conferences, through Asterion, an organisation representing neurodiversity in Classics.

One of the accessibility adjustments which has been agreed upon for the in-person 2023 CA Conference is the provision of a Quiet Room.

Quiet Rooms are already standard at some conferences – although they haven’t found their way into accepted practice at UK Classics conferences yet – because like many other autism adjustments, they benefit plenty of non-autistic people too. A Quiet Room is simply a place to go when you need some time away from the social pressures of the event. There are many reasons why non-autistic people at a conference might need that too – anxiety, stress, migraines, even a simple aversion to chit-chat – but for autistic people in particular, a safe and quiet space can make all the difference to their conference experience.

This year I’ll be attending the Classical Association Conference in Cambridge. If you’re going too, I’ll be happy to say hello and chat, and maybe even grab that coffee with you. And when it all gets too difficult and I can’t function any more, I’ll disappear for a while. You’ll find me comfortably ensconced in the Quiet Room, shutting out the world for a bit, in the company of a good book and anyone else who might be hiding from too much awareness.

So on this World Autism Awareness Day, I feel like I do have something to celebrate. I won’t be celebrating all of my wishes being granted, or the appearance of some sort of magical acceptance; it’s always dangerous to take myths too literally. Instead I’ll be celebrating something small but very real: a safe space in a scary world.

Based on my experience of teaching Classical languages, one of the most wonderful ancillary benefits of learning Latin or Greek is how students can make associations with English vocabulary, and, indeed, use etymological detective skills to decode unfamiliar English words. Having spoken to many other teachers, I know I’m not alone in this observation.

However, there are many schools in the UK that don’t have the time or opportunity to study Latin or Greek as discrete subjects. I started thinking about students at these schools and how could they access this fascinating and useful approach to understanding English. Could there be some way to engage them in a ‘light-touch’ way without the formal study Latin or Greek, and in a way that would benefit their English vocabulary and wider literacy?

In response, in 2019 I put together some trial classroom resources that drew on the Latin and Greek etymology of English vocabulary. These resources were designed for students aged from age 8 upwards, with each set of resources focussing on one Latin or Greek root. Sets contained a colourful poster that could be displayed digitally or printed out, plus five student worksheets that progressively introduced ambitious English vocabulary through the framework of the target root.

I quietly published these resources under a new section of maximumclassics.com and, to be honest, pretty much forgot about them for a while. Or at least, until I next checked my site’s statistics. Word Roots quickly became one of MC’s most visited pages, and some of the most downloaded resources. Feedback from teachers testified to the usefulness of the worksheets and of the systematic approach in general. So, I kept on making more and then, finally, moved all of the resources to their own site at word-roots.com.

As you’ll see if you visit the site, some of the resources are free to download and others have a £1 tag. Since Maximum Classics is run as a community interest company (CIC), any profits made on content sales are ploughed back into developing more free resources. More kids get access to the joy and usefulness of Latin and Greek, and the virtuous circle continues.