St Columba’s College | Sixth Form
Latin Why choose Latin? Latin A Level is very highly respected by universities and employers, and with good reason. Successful Latin students have to have powerful skills of grammatical analysis. But they also need to have a strong awareness of narrative structures and politico-historical contexts. Added to this, they should have a good grounding in Philosophy and be intelligent critics of art. And really that’s just the start.
What will you learn? We read the literature written by the Romans – this includes the wonderful mythology of Virgil and Ovid, the dazzling rhetoric of Cicero, the fascinating history of Tacitus. Smaller class sizes and more lesson time allows us to discuss in depth the philosophical and psychological issues raised by Ovid’s investigations into heroes and heroines, for example. The language skills that you have built up during GCSE go up several gears. The level of linguistic awareness, and the sophistication of the grammatical dialogues we have, is very high indeed. And the skill is transferable – it’s not just Latin structures you end up understanding, but the structure of all languages, indeed the structure of Language itself. It is the number one skill of them all – there is no more important skill you can have. This is set against the background of the expansion and workings of a proper landmark in human history – The Roman Empire. And so, the talk turns to archaeology, inscriptions, numismatics (coins), funerary beliefs, engineering, warfare, battle strategy, and conquest. We even had a lesson this year on ancient shipwrecks and sunken cargoes. So, the question is not so much ‘What will you learn?’ It’s probably easier to list the things you won’t learn.
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I now have a much deeper understanding of the way every language works, as well as a unique insight into the thoughts of this ancient civilisation. Gus Latin student
Student view To me, the study of the Classical World is the most exciting and intriguing prospect possible. The discussions we have had in the Latin Room have been some of the most fascinating and enjoyable of my life, and my grammatical skills have developed to a level I did not think possible. I now have a much deeper understanding of the way every language works, as well as a unique insight into the thoughts of this ancient civilisation. Gus Latin student
Entry Requirement Grade 7, 8 or 9 in the Higher-Level GCSE paper. GCE Advanced Latin Examination Board OCR Latin H443
