Sunday 23Sep2013

This week has been a strong week on education news, with the publication of the Politeia review and announcement that the WJEC Latin Level 2 certificate is included within the EBacc performance measures.

We have decided to create a dedicated blog for our Sunday updates. In this new blog we will try to bring you a round up of Classical news every Sunday.

(We know this post was posted late… too many things to do. This occasionally happens as well.)

Sunday 22Sep2013

The think-tank Politeia has published a new document suggesting changes to Latin at GCSE level. The report suggest that language learning could be enhance by offering an optional element of prose composition, which seems to be in the form of sentence translation, as well as a flexibility for reading around the ancient texts in the GCSE prescribed list and asking grammatical questions in the exam. The exam paper will be changed accordingly. The authors also asks the Secretary of State for Education to include Latin within the Key Stage 3 of the National Curriculum. You can see the full report, containing the authors’ reasoning, suggestions and a mock paper with the changes included here: http://www.politeia.co.uk/sites/default/files/files/Latin%20for%20Langauge%20Lovers-%20Print%20Edition.pdf. The Independent reported on the pamphlet: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/put-latin-on-national-curriculum-michael-gove-told-8820206.html. We also hope to be writing a piece on this in the next few days, in Sol Day (our opinion column) and as a separate article on the main blog.

Harry Mount, author of Amo, Amas Amat and all that, then commented on the proposal (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/harrymount/100070694/the-tragic-dumbing-down-of-latin-in-our-schools/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter), claiming that not only Latin is difficult, but that English-to-Latin is significantly more difficult than Latin-to-English: “When you’re translating Latin into English, you can busk it… With the other way round – English into Latin – there’s no busking.” This led to quite a negative reaction on Twitter and James Warren’s blog post give us a taste: http://kenodoxia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/res-publica-and-rigours-of-translation.html.

WJEC has announced that “the Department for Education (DfE) in England has confirmed that the WJEC Level 2 Certificates in Latin Language and Latin Language and Roman Civilisation will be recognised in the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) performance measure from 2014.

The impact of this is as follows:

• WJEC Level 2 Certificate in Latin Language is recognised in the EBacc as a language
• WJEC Level 2 Certificate in Latin Language and Roman Civilisation is recognised in the EBacc as a language”

(See here: http://www.wjec.co.uk/uploads/publications/18096.pdf, http://www.wjec.co.uk/index.php?subject=167&level=15&imageField2.x=21&imageField2.y=3)

The Latin work of a native American surfaced at Harvard last week: Harvard Crimson ow.ly/oZVcW , Harvard Gazette ow.ly/p0vet .

Scientists Search in Pieria the Wood of Which Ancient Triremes were Made. Greek Reporter: http://ow.ly/oZlR8 

Pelagios Project was featured by The Guardian as the Google Earth project of the ancient world : ow.ly/oZlXW 

“Loeb at First Sight: The Classics Come in Red and Green”. A rather stylish look at the Harvard books. Designers & Books: http://ow.ly/oYuqJ 

American Philological Society (APA) to change its name to the Society for Classical Studies (SCC?). TAPA remains TAPA. APA: http://ow.ly/oX6an 

…and we have passed the 1000 mark in the number of followers we have on Twitter! Thanks for you continue support at twitter.com/ClassColl!

We will provide the links to a few posts of ours when they materialise, and this includes our weekly soapbox “Sol Day”, also on this blog. Watch this space!