Who learns Classics?
All boys start Latin when they join the Fourth Form - Latin is offered at Scholarship or Common Entrance level before they leave.

How often?
The number of weekly lessons starts at four and increases slightly in the top sets and as the boys move up through the school, as we have found that the demands of the subject are more easily met by maturing minds. This allocation is greater than many schools' and reflects the importance that we, and the Senior Schools to which we send boys, attach to Classics.

What material is used?
To cover the Common Entrance syllabus, the all sets use the Latin Prep Course. A good basic book to use for interest at home would be Barbara Bell's Minimus series. The upper stream follows an accelerated course before moving on to material written in-house. In 6a, selections from Caesar, Livy, Pliny and Cicero are studied.

For all boys, the non-linguistic elements of the syllabus are based around four topics: The City of Rome, Roman Life, The Army and Roman Britain and Greek Mythology. Any relevant book, television programme or museum visit helps to reinforce the boys' natural enthusiasm for these subjects, especially mythology.

What about Greek?
The Scholarship stream has one or two timetabled Greek periods a week. Whilst this may seem minimal, over four years it is enough to cover all the necessary grammar for the Scholarship expectations of the Senior schools.

Why study Latin and Greek?

Thomas Jefferson, 1800

The teaching of modern languages does not always touch on the scientific analysis of language as mankind's principal tool. This is a void that the Classics teacher is happy to fill; and both Latin and Greek, which do not have to be spoken or created, provide excellent material. The fact that Latin and Greek are as dead as dead can be and have fairly rigid and transparent structures is a positive asset, making them ideal for anatomical research: they are not subject to the vagaries of linguistic development and transitory fashions, yet they live on through the beauty of their literature.

English has borrowed a vast quantity of Latin and Greek word-stems, and much is learned about the meaning, morphology, and spelling of those words. In particular, technical terminology is often classically based, and words seem less mysterious and easier to remember if their origins are understood. Reference is also be made to the rather different way in which French (or even Spanish and Italian, which the boys often encounter on holiday) has developed its heritage of Latin words. Such comparison leads to an awareness of linguistic evolution, of language as a living organism; in turn this engenders in the pupil a respect - and maybe an affection - for language that can only enhance his own application and appreciation of it. In sum, it could be said that Latin as a school discipline bears something of the same relationship of thought - the pupils will be learning more about language per se than about Latin or Greek themselves.

In the past, much was made of the value of Classics in offering a training in mental discipline. Latin has indeed much to offer in this direction: the co-ordination of data and meaning, the concentration required to make precise observations, the development of memory beyond immediate needs, the synthesis of apparent meaning and real sense, the creative yet conditioned use of language, and so on. Recent research has shown the clear structures of Latin to be of great help to children with learning difficulties, and it has not gone unnoticed that some educational authorities in the United States have seen fit to re-introduce Latin as a means to improving overall language skills.

No Preparatory School Latin course will be complete in itself, since it is highly unlikely to provide pupils with, for example, appreciative access to the works of major writers such as Vergil or Horace. If it is to be part of a continuum that is furthered at Senior Schools, pupils must leave Caldicott feeling enthused by their Latin and Greek so that they will wish to develop their knowledge. Those who teach Classics here feel a responsibility to that continuum, and we are pleased to see that many boys are keen to pursue their studies elsewhere and thus reap the full benefit of their early labours.

Both the Ancient Greeks and the Romans have much to teach us. Their institutions, from the mythological to the constitutional, were a serious attempt to solve human problems that face every generation. Much subsequent literature, even that written in modern times, presumes some awareness of classical antiquity, and sometimes self-consciously harks back to its themes and modes of presentation. There is a link, too, with the art world through, for instance, classical themes in Renaissance painting and the orders of architecture. Thus even the C.E. Latin and Greek courses supply a background as much for several other disciplines as for a better understanding of the modern world.

To Conclude

AC Grayling, 2001