That £4m on Latin lessons should be spent on a modern foreign language

[newnortherner111]

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/latin-state-schools-england-williamson-b1894202.html

Latest idea from the Education Secretary. Given that the Prime Minister has been in a Catholic church at least once, did he not tell Gavin Williamson that the Catholic Mass is usually in the local language now, and has been for over 50 years?

Encouraging learning Spanish for example would be much better and actually have a use in real life.

Did you know that the Department of Education offers a large bursary each year to train as a classics teacher? Even this September when they have dropped the bursary for almost every other subject?

Those teachers who are paid to train to teach classics almost invariably then go into the private sector - there is no requirement for them to teach in the state sector.

Perhaps instead of training current state staff to teach Latin, he should make some effort to retain in the state sector those who are being paid thousands to train?

If we look the actual rationale behind Williamson's plan, he wants to bestow cultural capital on our working class kids

This is billy bullshit. The rationale behind Williamson's plan is to grab headlines and fuel a culture war.

Latin is already taught in state schools, he isn't bestowing anything on anyone except himself.

"They didn't do Latin" became the office shorthand for staff who produced page after page of barely comprehensible drivel that had to be virtually rewritten ab initio

We've just been rewatching Yes Minister. There's an episode which gives the counter example - a parody of the truth being exemplified by some of the posters on this thread - in which a chemical name is being discussed. Learning the meaning of para in Latin provided the Classics-trained Bernard with many words but no relevant understanding.

The ability to sound erudite based on no understanding of what you're talking about is a curse.

My ds is at senior school in Italy and some of their subjects are taught in the foreign language they are learning e.g. they do biology in English. It's become a common approach here and language learning has really improved.

In terms of 'cultural capital', perhaps there should be more time (particularly in the sixth form, we specialise too much too early) for non-examined 'breadth'.

If he wants to improve breadth of study he could reinstate AS levels.

Learning sciences in English is quite sensible.
For a native anglophone to learn them in any other language would be foolish.

Maybe not science but why not another subject? We already do it with Welsh. It would need to be taught for many years though, not just tacked on at the last minute.

The concept of cultural capital is often overlooked. If we look the actual rationale behind Williamson's plan, he wants to bestow cultural capital on our working class kids, just like Ken Livingstone did back in the 80's. Eat the rich.

Latin alone cannot compensate for an upbringing with no cultural capital. You could argue that learning a modern language bestowed cultural capital. But, in reality, does it actually do that for the many state school pupils who don't value it and whose parents don't value it? If schools added Latin as an option, you can be pretty sure that most of the kids likely to take it up would be those whose mc parents were urging them to do so.

In terms of 'cultural capital', perhaps there should be more time (particularly in the sixth form, we specialise too much too early) for non-examined 'breadth'.

Hear, hear.

@noblegiraffe

"Latin is already taught in state schools"

Which ones would that be? Selective grammars in leafy areas? Only accessible by entrance exams that their parents paid tuition fees for? Definitely NOT any state schools most kids have access to.

"Not having Latin available at state schools in discriminatory. It makes it more difficult for those not accessing a private education to compete in certain fields. It is a source of cultural capital. I studied Literature at Cambridge University and remember the crippling inferiority I felt when I realised that there were cultural references that I didn’t understand which my peers did. This isn’t just Latin but Classics, more widely. Latin should be available for all not just the elite"
As someone who did a Literature degree, I completely agree with this. I think this is a more honest argument for studying Latin. I do agree that Latin helps understanding the root words of other languages and to some extent helps with logic, but these are benefits not specific to Latin and are skills that can be gained via other means. A knowledge of Latin is clearly still an advantage in terms of Cultural Capital, as can be seen by the sneering of some posters who are enjoying looking down on those who didn't study the subject. Somehow, the superior grasp of logic they're claiming to possess doesn't seem to extend to considering that not having been taught Latin probably also often goes hand-in-hand with not being taught the basics of English Grammar and composition.

Definitely NOT any state schools most kids have access to.

And how do you think adding a mere 40 schools to the list (1% of state secondaries) will suddenly make Latin accessible to most students?

Maybe not science but why not another subject?

It would have to be a language which all the pupils were learning, wouldn't it? So, apart from the special case of Welsh in wales, which language(s)should all anglophone children have to learn well enough to be used as a medium for other subjects? Which subjects would this work well for?

@noblegiraffe

It's a pilot scheme. Please read the article

Not so surprising that lots of posters who were taught Latin are saying it's useful but you would struggle to find anyone who has learnt a modern foreign language who would say their modern language wasn't useful.

I didn't learn Latin and have never once regretted it. I'm happy that I spent the time learning more relevant subjects.

I'd much rather any extra money was spent on SEN provision.

...not to mention, where do the numbers of teachers of subject X who are fluent enough in language Y to teach in it come from?

The fact that English is the dominant global lingua Franca is a bit of a curse, but outweighed by it being a blessing.

It's a pilot scheme. Please read the article

I've read the article. I know what it is, it's a dead cat.

"Latin has made a remarkable comeback in state secondary school classrooms, according to figures released today.

The number of non-selective state maintained secondary schools offering the subject to pupils has shot up from around 100 a decade ago to just over 600 today, according to the University of Cambridge Schools Classics Project."

Article from 2014. Why do you think we need a pilot project in 40 schools in 2021?

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/schools/latin-makes-surprising-comeback-state-schools-9677092.html

I'll take the 2021 article thanks.

Cambridge University does tons to reach out and enhance state education, I cannot fault their efforts and ethic

However, if you look at the lived experience, Cambridge is full of rich people. They play the system by living in rich areas, going to state schools with a rich catchment. they provide study spaces, books and tutors for their offspring. That's how they get the grades. They're state school in name only.

Once they get there kids in, their sense of entitlement makes them rinse their college for bursaries (by declaring only one income from divorced parents or worse, still, putting themselves as sole addressee in one of their family properties, or even worse - tax dodges)

DD is not coy about money or her working class roots, as we don't think having less money or even more money is a signifier of worthiness. She has only met one person from scores of people with less money than us. All the grammar entrants are loaded and they all got Latin at school.

Anything Williamson can do to help our kids overcome the money barrier is a welcome move for me.

I’m a fan of MFL and I would have loved to have had the opportunity of Latin. However, I have a different idea about how to improve the attitude and therefore (possibly) the results of languages in Britain.

I think we should invest in mandatory learning of Gaelic, Welsh or Irish in every primary school so that all children are more or less bilingual from a young age and then add Latin and/or MFL at secondary.

I haven’t thought through the details but I think it would be a huge step forward to have cohorts who are able to speak more than one of 4 languages of the nation. It also won’t feel like such a jump from learning some piss poor French in primary where you spend more time talking Canada than actually learning the language and provide an actual skill set and learning another language will be normal.

I’ll take the 2021 article thanks.

You’ll take an announcement in 2021 from Gav spouting some nonsense about Latin in state schools where it is already taught in much larger numbers than this ‘pilot’ and the announcement will make fuck-all difference without applying critical thinking skills to exactly why this bullshit announcement is being made? Just like the one a few weeks ago about banning mobiles in classrooms when the vast majority of schools already do this?

Anything Williamson can do to help our kids overcome the money barrier is a welcome move for me.

Then this is the thread you should be on. Gav has just scrapped a route by which a large number of working class kids access university.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/4311626-Gav-scraps-level-3-BTECs-in-an-act-of-educational-vandalism

Why is Latin getting more headlines when scrapping BTECs will have far, far more of an impact, particularly on working class kids?

Do your DC speak Latin?

@noblegiraffe

Did you know that the Department of Education offers a large bursary each year to train as a classics teacher? Even this September when they have dropped the bursary for almost every other subject?

Those teachers who are paid to train to teach classics almost invariably then go into the private sector - there is no requirement for them to teach in the state sector.

Perhaps instead of training current state staff to teach Latin, he should make some effort to retain in the state sector those who are being paid thousands to train?

They seem to be so short of classics teachers. Some state schools did teach it in the 00s and DD studied it but when ds wanted to do it, it was no longer available. Real shame as the boys tended to love the subject and preferred it to history

@CinnamonJellyBeans

Do your DC speak Latin?

Does anyone?

I studied Latin to O level at our local comp. It's been invaluable in learning or cribbing other European languages as well as understanding English much more thoroughly.

noblegiraffe

They go in to the private sector because that's where they currently teach classics. I don't know of a state school that teaches classics currently. When I learnt it was a teacher doing it for the love of it - it was a lunch time class, on his own time.

If we bring back classics to state schools maybe those teachers would stay in the state system.