How should we teach the new Classical Civilization GCSE?

This is the follow-up to my recently posted reflections on the new Classical Civilization GCSE. Start here to get some of the background to what follows.

How I teach both Units is to use a pre-prepared PowerPoint that focuses students on the topics and helps them make notes on the proforma notesheets I’ve made for each topic. These include the images from the textbook and others and have subtitles and thinking questions in the margin, next to lined areas in which to write. Effectively, they’re filling a folder with revision resources as they learn.

I tend to have very mixed-ability classes, and this encourages those who need scaffolding to make sure they have the basic bullet points and annotations, whilst those more able have space to add further detail. It does mean we’re spending quite a lot of money on photocopying, but exercise books just don’t cut it when there are so many sources to include.

To introduce the Assessment Objectives and develop the students’ written skill, every homework and class assessment is written in the style of the exam questions, thus building those important skills in the background, instead of ‘exam skills’ and the Assessment Objectives becoming the focus.

When the students start on the longer questions, 8- and 15-markers, I employ a list of ‘error codes’ that I can write on their work. They have a key in their folder and surprisingly quickly they get to know that they have E1 (‘not read the question properly’) or E3 (‘not using the technical terms we’ve covered’) that they must target next time. This gets them to actually read teacher comments and prescriptions and act on them, with the added benefit of it taking less time to mark their work. The extra tool I use just for Homeric World is a set of source cards I have made up by our Reprographics department (again, potentially pricey, but so helpful) which each pupil receives.

The Prescribed Sources are joined by many other similar text and image sources (I combed the textbook and picked out every single item mentioned, then added more) that can be used to discuss each of the subtopics in the Life, Decorative Arts, Tombs, Grave and Burial, and Key Sites, and we essentially play games of Snap or Top Trumps, explaining why and how the card we’ve put down is evidence for whatever topic we’re discussing. It really broadens the students’ knowledge of the sources. Don’t forget that you will be given credit in the exam if you study extra sources and make relevant use of them in your answers, as it says in both the Specification and the textbook…

And so we come to the textbook. Caroline Bristow explains how it was actually being written at the same time as the Specification was being developed: “We hired “developers” to work on the specifics of the content (teachers) and also reviewers (teachers, academics, me…) to check and tweak. The textbook writers were invaluable throughout this. Because of time frames, the textbook was being written before the content in the specification had been finished. They were literally writing stuff as we were drafting the topics. So many times I’d have the editor James Renshaw on the phone to say ‘nope, this one looks like it should work, but the moment you start working the content through it doesn’t … Here’s what might….’ They were almost beta-testing the spec by trying to write textbooks for it.” That’s not to say that the textbook informed the Specification, but, as Caroline Bristow remarks, it was a useful testing ground. In the end, the Specification remains a legally binding document, and the textbook just an interpretation of that.

There are in fact two textbooks, depending on which Thematic Study you’ve chosen, which is wise because even with only one of them and all of the consequent Literature and Culture topics they are physically heavy. They take you deftly through each unit’s key information, fleshing out the specification cogently. They’re also consistently illustrated with diagrams and photographs and with additional vocabulary and detail in margin text-boxes, and provide a happy teacher with ‘Stretch and Challenge’ questions, thinking points, and practice assessment tasks, all of which are consistent with the Assessment Objectives and question styles to be expected in the exams. Unfortunately, the first printing of textbooks was rife with spelling inconsistencies and factual errors in the units we used, some even mislabelling Prescribed Sources. No errata list was published, but most of the errors have now been corrected in the second printing.

However it was certainly off-putting, and frankly embarrassing to have to explain (I died a little inside when a pupil pointed out that Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, not BC). The issues of less experienced teachers not necessarily noticing the errors, and also parents potentially complaining, thus undermining the academic rigour and importance of the subject, was also a worry. If the difficult circumstances surrounding the actual production of the textbook had been made known, an errata list sent to purchasers, and the importance of the textbook in developing the actual specification were really made clear, then I’m sure there would have been fewer worried, and vocal, teachers. It would also have made things easier in this year’s exams, where, in each paper, several questions seemed to have been designed entirely around a specific textbook passage which was not necessarily something obviously on the specification.

I don’t wish to scaremonger, especially as, on the whole, the exams were very answerable and exactly as expected in layout and topic.

Any pupil who had revised their notes carefully, re-read their literary sources and annotated their visual, practised the example questions from the textbook and similar set by teachers, would have been absolutely fine, and in my class they were: we had 100% grades 9 – 6. However, a few questions in this first ever round of exams were challenging: in Myth and Religion, the specification instructs that the students learn about Theseus’ adventures “as displayed on the Theseus kylix” and from reading Plutarch’s Lives. However, the exam questions on Theseus asked for one ‘adventure’ from the kylix before moving on to ask students about Theseus’ political reforms, worth 3 marks. This isn’t mentioned in the Plutarch, is obviously not on the kylix, but there’s a paragraph in the textbook about it which effectively describes synoecism, and a summarising paragraph which states “He introduced Democracy,” which all the Ancient History teachers I’ve shown it to have stared at in horror.

More frustratingly, in the Homeric World paper, one page of questions was on the humble stirrup jar: it is not a Prescribed Source; it is not mentioned by name on the specification (the exact Specification wording states that pupils should know about ‘types of storage vessels, drinking vessels’); it has one paragraph of only four sentences on it in the textbook and isn’t even delineated in bold like all the other types of vessel mentioned, and has one textbook photo (which doesn’t really even show the stirrup handles), under which is a caption mentioning how it was decorated. This particular set of questions was worth a whopping 9 marks! My poor students knew everything about cloisonné and repousse and inlay and granulation (‘Jewellery: techniques and use of materials including metalwork, amber and glass’) and the four-step method for painting frescoes (‘Frescoes, including: techniques, colours and typical designs’), but only two of them told me after the exam that they even remembered what a stirrup jar was. I even had to check I’d taught it – I had, and I’ve never been more vindicated for what I thought was over-teaching. Those two students got the highest grades of the class.

The Specification does inform teachers that ‘unseen’ sources will be used in the assessment of each unit. In the Myth and Religion section it suggests that ‘learners should study other ancient sources in addition to those prescribed when exploring the topics in this component to give a wider contextual background’, and for the Homeric World topic it states that

For the ‘Culture’ section of this component the assessment will also make use of unseen sources in some questions. The unseen sources could be literary sources as well as visual/material sources. To prepare for these questions, learners should study other ancient sources in addition to those prescribed when exploring the topics in this component to give a wider contextual background.

Thus it could be read that the textbook helpfully adds some more specific non-Prescribed Source ‘unseen’ details and examples to the sparse specified list, and perhaps we should be grateful; it’s doing our research for us. However, even with my knowledge of and previous experience teaching about Mycenae at A-Level and KS3, without the textbook to inform me my pupils would have had no chance getting all 9 of those stirrup jar marks. For me, certainly, it was invaluable. And, that could be a problem, as no textbook should be entirely necessary to teach any Specification. 

I would absolutely recommend the new GCSE to anyone introducing Classical Civilisation as, all told, it is a really good introductory course to key aspects of the ancient European world that students will enjoy and be challenged by. The interchangeable Thematic Studies and Literature and Culture modules make it customisable for a wide range of specific interests, and the course is well-supported by the textbook, as long as you have the most recent version. Though it could be a little intimidating for a teacher starting out, by now there are a good few resources available from other teachers, (including my own), and lots of sharing of ideas among Classics Tweeters (try #ClassicsTwitter #ClassicsTeacher and #GCSEClassics). And, so far, assessment seems to be ok, and will, I’m sure, get more even as the spec loses its ‘brand new’ smell. For now though, you just have to remember to teach them EVERYTHING!

Below are some resources I’ve made available to all. Have a look and let us know what you think!

Myth and Religion: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wvzb8cxdk1lns7h/AADpoc67ZmOeCwljwp8cc_pda?dl=0

Homeric World: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/olkmg9w7ia4n7lj/AAASOeREPpYAKgv_pgf3sexda?dl=0