KEY AIMS: our main aim (other than for the beginners) is to become more fluent and read more widely, providing an additional confidence in the language and interest in the literature, as well as the obvious considerable advantage for forthcoming public exams and university applications. For the younger groups this course is often an excellent introduction to reading original Latin literature more widely than is required for the “learning” of GCSE set texts. More advanced groups will be stretched with a range of texts and authors they may never have seen before (because of time restraints at school) which can make for an excellent line on personal statements and fuel for top end university interviews. Indeed universities recognise the Summer School as providing exactly the sort of additional exposure to original texts that they look for in good candidates.
OUR GROUPS AND COURSES: students are allocated to groups based on their levels of experience rather than age, though in most cases this means groups – certainly the school-age groups – will have students of the same or very similar age. We create the groups based on the individual needs of each year’s cohort of students; usually this means courses for complete beginners, UK students in Y9-10 who are already at least 3 years into studying towards a GCSE, students who (will) have just completed their GCSEs and UK students in either of the two sixth-form Level years. In addition, we cater for undergraduates who have started Latin at university and can often run a bespoke course for people who are about to begin PGCEs or teaching jobs. Everyone receives three formal teaching sessions per day and works in between these sessions preparing ahead as instructed by their course tutors.
NON-UK STUDENTS: students from overseas are equally welcome and will be allocated to a group with UK students whose prior experience is closest to their own. We never have any problems matching an overseas student to a suitable group as long as you have given us enough information. (And on those very rare occasions they are moved to the right group very early on.) Please do give us as much detail as possible about the education system you are in, as well as whatever Latin qualifications you have already taken, to enable us to get this right every time!
GRAMMAR REVISION: Although revision of Latin exam syllabus grammar is not the primary focus of the Latin Summer School, we do offer grammar clinics on various topics (e.g. Participles & ablative absolutes or uses of the subjunctive). For more advanced groups we also set and test small sections (e.g. adjective endings) for revision between classes each day as appropriate to the reading level of each group. Please click here for a sample grammar revision schedule recently used with an A Level group.
THE TUTORS: The tutors are all highly qualified subject specialists, of whom almost all are practising Classics teachers from some of the country’s leading schools and many are experienced current or recent Latin public examiners. As such they understand how school pupils learn, the sorts of linguistic areas with which even the more able will struggle, and how our courses can directly contribute towards success in public examinations as well as enrich them more generally.