Classics News October 2024

Congratulations to Ronitth V(11B) and Tom B (10C) who came highly commended in the joint WBGS-WGGS Classics Summer Essay Competition! The overall winner this year was an entry from WGGS, which means each school has one overall win - can WBGS get back in the lead this year? Year 9 and Year 10 Classicists are strongly encouraged to look out for the new questions in the Summer Term.

Congratulations also go to the four sixth-form students and one staff member who sat the Intermediate Certificate in Classical Greek this summer, with many achieving distinctions! A new cohort of Hellenists has begun their studies and we look forward to communicating their successes next year.

In Year 7 and 9 Latin a seismic shift has occurred: Caecilius and the Cambridge Latin Course have been replaced with a brand new Latin course: Suburani. This textbook follows the lives of the inhabitants of the Subura, a busy district in Rome, and follows this diverse cast of characters as they travel across the Roman Empire in the first century AD. The accompanying website boasts a great number of student-friendly resources: beyond being able to access the full text book with the Latin words hyperlinked to translations and related words in modern languages, there are vocabulary and verb trainers which build student knowledge gradually and allow them to track their progress and a number of games, including a Latin version of Wordle which has proved particularly popular with the Year 9 Latinists.

Miss Sams

Head of Classics