An End to Latin in the State Sector?

With the Department for Education ending funding for the Latin Excellence programme in the state sector, we asked Jessica Ashby MA (Cantab), Head of Classics at St Catherine’s School, Bramley, for her view as to its value.

“The arrival of AI poses many questions for education. Many elements of careers to which students have previously aspired are being replaced by AI. What seems further away is the replacement of critical analysis and the ability to look at the world through someone else’s eyes.

Students of ancient languages learn to work through every sentence with rigour, accounting for the case, number and gender of every noun; for the person, tense, voice and mood of every verb. But they also learn to be sensitive to the political climate in which texts were written, to the response they offer to earlier literature, to the message they seek to convey and to what audience.

Classics students learn to examine both what is there and what is not: in Classics, that is often the perspective of women or slaves. Students learn to identify bias and which alternative sources - literary or material - they might examine to redress this.

Beyond an enhanced lexicon, a key to Romance languages and attention to detail, Classics develops skills of cultural awareness, critical thinking and self-reflection. It is this combination of close analysis and cultural sensitivity which continues to make Classicists so valuable in the modern world.”

JESSICA ASHBY MA (Cantab) Head of Classics at St Catherine’s School, Bramley www.stcatherines.info