If one thing has been proven by the Westminster government’s axing of the , it’s that keeping Classics alive in state schools has never been harder - and the threat to its existence never more real.
We are working through a period of what might be called educational austerity. School budgets have also been slashed repeatedly and as a consequence, so-called “minority” subjects are at risk of being cut altogether.
If a school faces a choice of offering German to a class of 20 or Latin to a class of 10, the cost of the class will usually make the decision.
Students thriving in low-uptake subjects
In Scotland in 2023-24, the following subjects all had fewer than 300 entries at Higher: fashion and textile technology, Italian, Gaelic, childcare and development, Urdu, Mandarin, care, Latin and Cantonese. But as the new record high in music uptake has shown, if you give kids a chance, they’ll often grab it with both hands.
School leaders looking at spreadsheets and trying to make the sums work will very much have an eye on these subjects. This is despite all these subjects having value to the students who take them - possibly even greater value because of their scarcity.
More on languages in Scotland:
I wrote for Tes some years ago about how state schools in Scotland could try to get Classical studies on to their course choice form for National 5; since 2016, the subject’s numbers have grown by 359 per cent. However, the numbers for Latin have remained stagnant.
We would do well to remind school leaders of this uptake for Classical studies when we argue for Latin. The data proves there is an appetite in school communities for these subjects.
The notes a responsibility for both ministers and education authorities to “reduce inequalities of outcome for students who experience those inequalities as a result of socio-economic disadvantage”. Surely it is then incumbent on state schools to offer their students the same subjects as students in the independent sector?
If we are serious about equity, state schools should be funded to meet this bar, but even with an absence of funding, there is a duty to give students equal access. Yet, as recent research on failings in multi-level language-learning classes shows, the Scottish government is failing teachers and students in many ways.
It is the job of a school to help students discover their enthusiasms and enable them to pursue them. If we cut subjects, we immediately remove the possibility of children discovering whole disciplines of learning that might have fired their imaginations for a lifetime, which would be a tragedy. Against this backdrop, projects such as the St Andrews Latin Outreach Scheme are even more vital, but can’t be expected to do the heavy lifting of government initiatives.
Where will the teachers come from?
With Latin - in Scotland, certainly - this becomes trickier because we know that there are no teacher-training opportunities for the subject. Where will the teachers come from?
School leaders would be surprised at the qualifications their existing staff have. A colleague of mine in chemistry received both Classical Greek and Latin up to the age of 17. Every school has staff with a hinterland that could be employed differently.
Relying on such staff may not be a long-term solution, but they could get the subject into the school and give state-school students the chance to choose it. They would also buy some time while Scotland decides whether to train any more Latin teachers.
There is no doubt that educational austerity is biting hard, and hits subjects with the lowest uptakes hardest. This is a crying shame because the numbers for Classical studies - driven by enthusiastic teachers of other subjects - prove that students often love these subjects.
In 2021, my partner and I founded Working Classicists, a vehicle to show that people from a state school background can have a deep and lifelong pleasure in the Classics.
Averting the road to ‘desolate curricula’
Our latest attempt to show the value of the subject and the talent of its working-class participants is , a beginners’ guide to Greek mythology organised into a familiar table. Each “element” was written by a different writer, so in one volume more than 100 writers - 80 per cent of whom, crucially, received a state education - were given their first published space and encouraged to further their enthusiasm.
The hunger for this project, which , shows that when given the chance, people of all ages and backgrounds can develop a lifelong enthusiasm for Classics - or fashion and textile technology, Italian, Gaelic, childcare and development, Urdu, Mandarin, care and Cantonese.
It’s about time our education authorities understood that “the market will decide” is a quick route to desolate curricula.
George Connor is a Classical studies and English teacher in Scotland. He posts on
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