November 5, 2024

What happened when a History teacher taught themselves Latin GCSE?

I’m going to share a secret with you all.  My name is Rachel, and I’m a history teacher, but I don’t have a history degree.  I think everyone assumes I do, and so they never ask. All those years ago when I was a bright-eyed undergrad, archaeology and a life in museums beckoned.  However, over the years the path I trod took me in various weird and wonderful directions and I ended up where I am. A history teacher without a history degree.  And I love my job.

When I joined my school as an NQT, there was a Latin teacher there.  He retired about two years after I started and the Latin left with him (replaced by Spanish). He would call in over the years and he kept telling me I should teach Latin too as he thought I was capable, but I never believed him.  I’d started a small Latin club with year 4/5/6 pupils which took them up to the OCR Entry Level Certificate, but I thought that was about my limit. After all, I’m an archaeologist not a linguist!

Then in 2017, after having spent several years envying the year 5s and their Entry Level Certificates, I decided to do it.  The idea of putting myself on a level playing field with pupils was quite scary, but I’d made my decision. My only regret was that the aforementioned Latin teacher passed away before I had time to tell him.  This made me even more determined to do it.  

I spoke to our headmaster and said I would like to reintroduce GCSE Latin to our school and his response was that he would want me to have A-Level first.  The path to bringing Latin back was being laid out at last! 

So how to begin?

One of the things I was quite determined about was that I would do it alone.  I didn’t want Skype lessons or private tutoring.  I wanted to see if it was possible to teach myself a new language to GCSE level through sheer determination alone.  Rightly or wrongly Latin has a reputation as a difficult or hard subject and I wanted to show that this wasn’t the case. 

And so I bought various books – the wonderful ”Learn Latin” by Peter Jones being the one I started with. It was great fun, but clearly aimed at adults.  Another search on Amazon brought the Cullen/Taylor books to my attention and I bought both. I’d researched the two exam boards (Eduqas and OCR) and decided that as I was planning on moving to A-Level afterwards, OCR was the one.  I also decided to do the culture paper as I reckoned I could just wing that one as I teach Romans to year 6 every year.

Once I’d decided to do this, starting was quite easy. I got an exercise book from the stationery cupboard and started on the first page of chapter 1 of book 1 and just plodded on through the chapters.  For all I was going this alone though, I would really have struggled without the help and support of the lovely Latin/Classics Twitter community.  Seeing tweets “liked” and the odd comment about my latest struggle was really good. The help and support was there, but nobody pushed themselves forward.  They were there to offer support and if I was stuck on something they would help, but then wait to see if I asked again. 

What did I find hardest?

Tempus fugit!  It really does. My initial plan had a chapter being completed every 3.5 weeks.  This clearly wasn’t going to happen. I kept toying with the idea of moving my exam from 2019 to 2020, but reckoned that I’d just procrastinate for another year justifying it to myself with “you can slow down now, you’ve got another year” or words to that effect.  So I kept going. Words like “declension” scared me to start with, but I found it easier once I put the fancy words to one side and just learnt different sets or chunks of grammar. I actually found the book did what it promised and it really did prepare me for the exam brilliantly well.  I found the Literature paper the hardest as I had not had a teacher tell me what to expect, or what to do for it. From the perspective of a GCSE teacher (and marker) I know that exam boards require certain types of responses to their questions, but I had no idea what was wanted here. I just had to hope for the best.

I strangely found the language paper the best as I think I was so well prepared for it.  The literature one was tricky (as I didn’t really know what I was supposed to be doing) and I should have known better than to think I could “wing it” for the culture paper.

The actual taking of the exam presented a few logistical problems but they were easily overcome. Taking it at my school was frowned upon (conflict of interest issues), and our headmaster had to complete a form from OCR confirming that I would not receive any favourable treatment from him / our school / our exams officer etc, but I simply asked a school near where I lived if they could accept me as a private candidate and they did.  I think it cost me about £95 to sit it. Admin taken care of, it was now back to me. 

What else did I learn?

I have to say that I found sitting a GCSE hard.  It was brilliant, and I loved it, but it was hard. I think the biggest thing that I got from this was just how big a deal a GCSE is to the person sitting it. I think we as teachers have lost perspective a bit here.  We often hear about the “dumbing down” of exams, but I think that does our pupils a disservice. I know I am guilty of saying things like “You just have to answer the question”, but now that I’ve sat an exam, I’m painfully aware of the nerves and feelings of “I’m not ready”, the anxiety felt whilst waiting outside the hall, the horror of opening an exam paper and thinking “I can’t do this”.  My gut reaction on opening one paper was to get up and run out of the room. And I’m a teacher!

On a different note, I had several well-intentioned people tell me that I was certain to get a 9. Yet why? Was this based on my being a teacher?  Just because I’m a teacher doesn’t automatically mean I’ll get a 9. Additionally, being told I would put a weird kind of extra pressure on me. In many ways, my exam didn’t matter – I’ve already been to college and got my A-levels etc – but I now felt like I had to meet expectations or I would have let these people down.  If I felt like this with my one insignificant exam, what on earth is going through our pupils’ heads while they’re gearing up for their 9/10/11 highly significant GCSEs?  

What next?

The initial plan was that I would go on to A Level and then be able to start teaching it.  However, I (only) got a 7, and I think that A Level will be too difficult for me to do on my own, and consequently I think that my school are hoping that I’ll drop the whole thing and that it’ll all just go away! Even I am not sure what my next step will be.  The current plan is to bring back Minimus and reintroduce the ELC. I don’t think that I will get support from SMT for Latin beyond KS2 and so my ambition to develop it further will have to be shelved for now. I love working at my school and have no plans to move and as long as the current head is there I doubt I’ll see any movement towards bringing back Classics.  I feel better poised to take an opportunity should one arise, but it’s looking a bit bleak at the moment.

This has been a really rewarding and enlightening experience, though. Our pupils have a lot going on in year 11, and I think I’m going to give them a bit more recognition for what they’re up against from now on.  At the same time though, I can see all too clearly the advantages of having a proper teacher when preparing for an exam so I shall be working equally hard on trying to get them to recognise the importance of accepting the help and support that is offered up to them.

If you are a teacher who taught yourself Latin from scratch, please share your thoughts in the comment section – and if you’d like to write up your experiences for a Quinquennium post, drop us a line at quinquenniumblog@gmail.com

388 thoughts on “What happened when a History teacher taught themselves Latin GCSE?

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  33. I would be interested to hear if anyone has experience of the distance-learning Classics courses run by the University of Wales – Trinity St David’s. I had the bright idea to sign up to one while on maternity leave – needless to say, reality kicked in and I have got no further. I am a History teacher and love it, but Classics really do beckon.

  34. A longer track to gaining a qualification is through the OU Classics degree. Six years, part time, is a long hike, but you’ll come out of it with enough Latin language and literature to take the kids through GCSE.

    1. That’s a great suggestion, Nigel. Do you speak from personal experience? Would love to hear what it’s like – especially given the glowing reputation OU Classics dept is enjoying at the moment. I’ve used them a fair bit as a resource for Classical Reception, where they seem to be field-leaders.

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