Shell Guide to the Curriculum 2023

Classics

The study of Classics has always been strong at St Edward’s. Today, it still plays a key and integral part of our cutting-edge curriculum. In the Shell, all pupils study Classics through wide-ranging courses that embrace varying degrees of language and cultural work. You will initially be put in a set according to your previous experience and skills so that you can develop your knowledge

and understanding from your particular starting point to best advantage. It is the School’s expectation that everyone who has some experience of Latin will continue during their first year. Those without previous experience are encouraged to gain some, and often go on to great success in the linguistic side of the subject. In addition, we offer Classical Greek as a standalone option, as it has all the intellectual strengths of learning Latin but even more so! All the sets, irrespective of the degree to which an ancient language is the focus, also study key aspects of Graeco-Roman culture, societies, history, ideas and ideals, often debating their concepts, many of which demand to be called out also in our contemporary world: slavery, sexism (in the very birthplace of democracy), invention of the ‘barbarian’, cultural appropriation, and genocide as a product of imperialism. A key part of the Classical Studies

element is to encourage pupils to engage critically with primary sources as evidence for what we do and don’t know, whether literary, epigraphic, numismatic or other material culture, supported by modern, secondary scholarship. Your learning will be assessed at multiple points in the year, both formally and informally through quick factual tests, timed essays, stimulus response questions, assessed debates, source presentations and, more traditionally, end-of-course written exams.

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