These groups are usually for people who are at least half way through an A Level in Latin but we also populate them with people working towards an international equivalent or older students who have started Latin later with broadly comparable experience at the time of joining us.
At this level we try to expose the students to a wider range of texts and authors than they will have time to read at school, the benefits of which will be considerable:
- We hope that the students will leave with a considerably greater confidence in reading the language which will directly benefit public examination performance, not only in the language papers but also in the literature papers with a greater alertness to a wider range of authors and the linguistic / stylistic devices which they use.
- An able group will read a selection of authors they may well never have encountered, to get a wider knowledge of literature, awareness of different literary styles and a better base of texts under their belt to talk about in future university applications.
- A student in the first year of a Latin A Level (or the equivalent) who is not studying Greek but is seriously considering Oxbridge Classics, would particularly benefit from joining us to acquire greater fluency for the Latin entrance papers as well as the obvious breadth of knowledge to discuss Roman authors at interview.
- There is also the obvious opportunity to talk informally to the speakers and tutors about top-end university applications.
Tutors choose texts based on the information which the students and referees provide. Typically selections from 3-4 texts will be studied. For example, one group recently read:
- Seneca, Letters (a selection)
- Suetonius – Nero (selection)
- Tacitus – Annals 14 (selection)
- Lucan – de bello civili book 7 (in its entirety)
Care is always taken to ensure that we do not cover anything which any students have already read, or will read as part of future exam specifications.