| Newsletter - July 2013 | |||
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| Introduction Sarah Jackson, CBE, Chair |
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Welcome to our Summer edition newsletter. Classics for All has evolved as an organisation since the last edition (January), and I would like to introduce you to the new people and next phase for our charity. After three years of steady growth and increasing success from our grant-giving, we felt it was right to take the next step and bring in an Executive Director. We welcome Jules Mann (see below) who joins us with a background in fundraising and the education sector, particularly around developing partner initiatives such as National Poetry Day in schools. Jules has the expertise we need to build the right partnerships and continue our work in introducing Classics to state schools. Jules was Director of the Poetry Society from 2003-08 and her career is wide-ranging, taking in both the arts and microfinance sector. | |||||||
| Sarah Jackson, CBE, Chair | ||||||||
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| Nicholas Barber CBE | Carolyn Foreman | David Tristram | Prof Tom Harrison | |||||
| In the past year we have added four new members to the Board of Trustees, most recently Nicholas Barber, former Chairman of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, who joined our Board in February and will be working with Jules on fundraising. Tom Harrison, Carolyn Foreman and David Tristram, formerly on the Grants Advisory Committee, have also joined the Board. With this skill set the Board of Classics for All agreed that it will now manage the grant approval process, drawing additional support from selected advisers along the way. | ||||||||
| Letter from Executive Director |  Jules Mann, Executive Director |
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| A warm “hello” to Classics for All supporters and friends. I have joined at an exciting time for this young and burgeoning charity, and am convinced we can succeed in reaching our goal to introduce Classics into 1,000 schools over the next ten years. As summer gets under way we are working behind the scenes to open up our next application round to schools by late September, ahead of the grant awards announcement in early 2014. Thanks to a number of regular donors to Classics for All as well as those who have recently joined in supporting us, we plan to continue our grant giving to new applicants as well as extend work in projects that demonstrate their capacity to grow. Since our last newsletter we have been developing stronger partnerships with those who are carrying out work in bringing Classics into state schools – Higher Education outreach work, teacher training programmes, mentoring and teacher resource development for primary and secondary schools. We’ll have more details to share with you in future issues. In this newsletter we give you a glimpse of some of the work from the 17 projects that have been funded since we began. There are some exciting ‘hot spots’ for Classics coming out of these projects; one that we describe in more detail takes place in Brighton and Hove. There are, of course, many more examples in other areas – we will highlight those we fund, but do keep us informed of any you’re aware of so that we can work together to share best practice in pedagogy and resources. |
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| Project Updates |  |
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| Classics for All has awarded 17 grants totalling £158,000. These grants include eight school clusters (each cluster representing on average five schools), a model that continues to demonstrate success and high levels of engagement by headteachers, teachers and students. To see how this is structured, visit www.classicsforall.org.uk/projects Our 2011 grant to the Cambridge School Classics Project created a course aimed at introducing pupils to Homer, Ovid and the classical epic as part of the Key Stage 3 English curriculum. Over the past year the Cambridge Faculty of Education have been trialling the study of epic and sagas at pre-GCSE level, reaching over a thousand pupils at four state schools. We will update you about their progress on publishing an online resource later this year. Meanwhile, let’s take a quick tour of the most recently funded projects by area: North/North West
South
East
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| Project Close-up — Patcham High School & Varndean College |
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| A group of students from Varndean College joined us on 4 June at our Classics for All Lecture with Paul Roberts. They gave a powerful presentation in their own words about having the opportunity to learn Classics. Varndean is one of the hub schools of the Patcham High School project funded by Classics for All (in 2012 the Patcham project was awarded £15,422 over two years to run twilight Latin sessions and introduce Classics at Key Stages 4 and 5) with teachers Will Power (pictured), Sean McAvoy, Conor Muldoon and Martin Ballard. Classics for All Trustee Carolyn Foreman and I visited the Patcham project on 5 June. We first sat in a classroom at Varndean College with a group of seven first year Latin pupils fresh out of exams that morning. It was clear that the study of Latin complemented their HE and career ambitions which included History, Classical Civilisation, Creative Writing, Museum Studies, and, in the case of one student, preparation for studying Medicine at Oxbridge. We met Rowlie Darby at Patcham High School before he started a beginners’ Latin class. Rowlie is attuned to the challenges of teaching Latin to beginners – ten years ago as an English teacher he took the Latin GCSE course, studying the Cambridge Latin Course and sitting the GCSE exams alongside a student. During our visit Carolyn and I were able to join his students as they engaged in their Latin lessons, and we came away from the day’s visit impressed by the collective enthusiasm of students and teachers. Jules Mann |
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| The Challenge — keeping up with demand |  |
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| Classics for All is a registered charity that finances projects to enable Classics to become available in every state school where there is demand. For every grant from Classics for All to help put Classics into state schools, we turn down several who have requested support. This adds up to a substantial unmet demand each year, which we need your help to fulfil. We need to raise well over £100,000 annually to provide Classics in 100 schools per year, to give us the 1,000 schools we are seeking to reach in ten years. Schools can do so much with even a relatively small amount each year, and the result is of tremendous value to them and to our donors. If this cause is important to you, please give what you can. Is there a region in the UK in which you take a particular interest, and for which you would like to give money to us to fund the introduction or expansion of Classics in local schools? We have carried this out successfully with a number of individual donors, local Foundations and family Trusts, and would be happy to discuss this with you in detail. Please get in touch by emailing Jules Mann at jules@classicsforall.org.uk, or ring 07809 256839.
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| News |  |
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| Take a tour of Classics for All’s projects with historian and television presenter Bettany Hughes, one of our Patrons,who has made a new video showing some of our work so far – you can hear about the results in the words of the pupils and teachers. Please click here to see it on YouTube Classics for All Patron Professor Mary Beard curated a debate at the British Museum entitled “Does Latin have a Future?”. As she explains on her blog “The reason for this is obvious. Here we have a hugely successful exhibition on Pompeii and Herculaneum, but if we are going to go on having people with interesting things to say about the history of these towns in the years to come… well, we'll need people who can understand Latin. Making sense of Pompeii is not all about excavation, after all; it's about fitting the physical remains into a bigger picture of the Roman world. And you can't do that without Latin”. She goes on to introduce panel member “Peter Jones, who has done more than anyone in the country to promote classical languages (including most recently being behind Classics For All, a charity which provides funds for getting Classics back into maintained schools)”. A number of professionals from City firms in London have gathered together in support of Classics for All – they are planning an invitation-only social fundraising evening in October or November (date tbc). If you work in, or have connections with, the City and would like to be involved please email jules@classicsforall.org.uk The DfE has a consultation out for the new GCSE criteria for Classical languages. If you would like to participate in this consultation, please visit their website where you will find a link to the ‘GCSE Ancient Language’ document, and can respond online from this web page: www.gov.uk/government/consultations/gcse-subject-content-and-assessment-objectives We recently Tweeted about the Classics in Communities: Theories and Practices to develop Classics Outreach in the 21st Century Conference coming up on 21 November; there is a call for papers by 30 August. Don’t forget to sign up with @classicsforall to get breaking news and ongoing items of interest, managed by our volunteers Fleur Macdonald and Sarah Rowley. |
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| Patrons |  |
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| Sponsors | |||||
| We are grateful to our corporate partners who are generously supporting Classics for All in a variety of ways: |
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| Principal Corporate Sponsors | |||||
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