• 
  
• Art & Design
• Biology
• Careers & University
• Chemistry
• Classics
• Staff
• Classics trips
• Essay prize
• Classics Calendar
• Links
• Latin Curriculum
• Design and Technology
• Drama
• Economics and Politics
• English
• Enrichment Programme
• General Studies
• Geography
• History
• ICT and Computing
• Learning Support
• Library
• Mathematics
• Modern Languages
• Music
• Physical Education
• Physics
• PSHCE
• Psychology
• Religious Education
• 
  
  
  
• Sitemap

Classics

 
 

Classics is the study of Greek and Roman Civilisation in its broadest sense and at Merchant Taylors' our approach to the study of Classics is through learning the original languages from the very start - the earlier one starts to learn any foreign language, the better! The department is located in four specialist classrooms, each with full black-out facilities, a projection screen, a wall-mounted TV/VCR and PC with DVD player, data-projector, speakers and smart-board.

Michael HUSBANDS, Head of Department
Martin DRURY
Mrs M. JACOBS
Miss L. NICHOLAS

The department aims to kindle students’ imagination through contact with the classical world and to develop students’ powers of observation, analysis , judgement and communication. In addition we strive to provide pupils with first hand access to world-famous writers, enabling them to reach a first-rate understanding of those authors. In addition, we provide an insight into the origins of Western Culture and of modern European languages, to introduce concepts at the core of “civilisation”, to learn the languages that have given modern political and philosophical thought its key concepts and to develop tolerant, but not uncritical, attitudes towards customs and practices unlike our own.
 
All boys who enter Merchant Taylors' by the eleven-plus examination are taught Latin for two years, and as soon as is practicable they are subject-specifically setted for four periods per week into two or three sets from which they may move up or down as and when it is deemed necessary. The course we use is "The Cambridge Latin Course". Within those two years we aim to have completed Books I, II and III.

In Year 9 Latin is typically studied by all of our pupils - well over a hundred and fifty boys - who have been admitted from a range of preparatory schools. A very small number of boys who have done no Latin at all at their Prep School, are accommodated as appropriate. After a brief period of recapitulation and revision our programme starts with the Fourth volume of “The Cambridge Latin Course", in which pupils are introduced to the city of Rome itself, as well as an in depth cultural insight into Romans at leisure. At the beginning of this "Fourth Form" that pupils are given the opportunity to start Greek. The subject-matter is firmly rooted in Greek mythology, and the weekly allocation is four periods. Numbers choosing Greek and Latin for GCSE are very healthy.

On moving from the Middle to the Upper School, a major change which takes place in the study of both Greek and Latin, with a greater proportion of time and effort being devoted to the study of their literatures.
Of the seven periods per week allocated to each AS subject in the Lower Sixth, four are devoted to studying the prescribed verse texts (if possible from Ovid and Euripides, since these are most helpful to candidates when they encounter the authors “unprepared” in the Language Paper of A2), and three to linguistic work including the reading of prose authors best designed to place the prescribed verse author in his historical and cultural context.
Of the eight periods per week allocated to each A2 subject, four are again devoted to studying a prescribed verse text, and the other four cover more advanced language work and further prose literature.