My son has the chance to drop Latin in Year 9 to study 'Classical Civilisation' instead. Is this dumbing down?

[tigermoth]

This is from my son, who is now sitting in front of the keyboard:

as my mum has already said,i could drop latin to study classical civilisation in year 9. i want to drop it because i find the language far too challenging and i love history and classical civilisation is more history orientated. and i think i can get better marks in classical civilisation if i put in as much effort as i do in latin(which is, yes, quite a lot)!
back to my mum:

me, tigermoth, again....
I did not study latin at school, so feel inexperienced in giving advice. However I am wary of the dumbing down element in this and feel ds1 is capable of studying latin if he put his mind to it. I am aware that not many state schools nowadays make children do latin - ds's grammar school is in a minority. Is this a good or bad thing?

My husband studied latin at school and is adament that ds should not give it up for at least another year so he gets a proper grounding in it.

The school's letter about this states 'If your child gained a satisfactory latin exam result in year 8 we would strongly encourge them to persue latin in year 9 to give them the option of taking latin as well as or instead of classical civilisation at O level'. Also it says latin is 'a valuable basis for other languages, a discipline for clear thinking and a subject of intrinsic interest in its own right'

Ds gained a satisfactory result in his exams with very moderate revision effort. DS has just seem me type this and his head is nodding in agreement. He did not work hard to pass the exam.

So I do feel he is capable of studying latin if he had to, but is it worthwhile making him do it for another year or more?

I would keep on with the Latin to keep options open. The Latin lessons would have some sort of history/life of the ancient romans components, not be pure language at this stage. also learning latin makes it easier to learn other modern languages (even helps with german due to grammatical structure etc).

I did clas civ and latin at gcse (in fact loved it so much I did latin after school as they couldn't offer it in the curriculum). I then did Ancient History and archaeology at university.

I would say keep up the latin unless he really hates it as it is very useful for other european languages and if he's really interested in history latin would be useful. Being biased I would say can he do both ? They obviously go together very well. But then, I guess this might restrict what else he does.

The language does not really get much harder, just more of it IYSWIM. It sounds as if he could do both Latin & Class Civ at GCSE, which would be my choice for him if I were you.

If he got a satisfactory with not much effort then he should breeze it at GCSE. (Latin & Ancient Greek degree here by the way!)

Keep going with the Latin. That way you keep both options open.

O level?

oh, ds1 will be getting worried about these replies! thanks for them. I didn't realise there were so many classics scholars on mumsnet.

DS managed the first year of Latin at GCSE, then slipped out of the class. Perhaps this was because Latin at his school is an extra.... it has to be done on one lunchtime per week, plus one after school class.

They started out with about 12 pupils and they slowly dropped out.... DS made it to the last 5 kids before giving up too. He enjoyed it, but then when the coursework kicked in he started to fall further and further behind.

He does plan to go for Classic Civilisations at AS level though.

Just that one year of GCSE Latin has stood him in good stead for English language (he is predicted A* for English), so I would try and stick with the Latin if he can.

I did Standard Grade Latin and loved it. (Equiv to GCSE)

We had to cover Roman life and do project work as well as the language.

I wish I'd carried on and done Higher. It really was fascinating and did help my English and French.

I even won a Latin speaking comptetion

Latin poetry is a bit saucy though...

I've taught both.

Stick to the Latin, young man! If you like History, read some ancient history for fun instead of doing class civ.

Is it the Cambridge Latin Course you're doing?

in answer to the op. yes!
latin is brill. tell him to get on with it.

At my dbro's school, classical civilisation was generally known as 'heroes for zeroes'. So yes, it was regarded as a soft option, and I suspect still is. This may or may not matter to you, but it's worth being aware of.

definitely -did it for a level and as part of my history course at uni. Even though now do something unrelated found the language/logic skills useful not to mention fantastic literature and history

More pro latin votes!

Interestingly my son says all the naugthy kids are opting stay with Latin while the good kids are choosing to drop it for Classical Civilisation.

So were you all classics people naughty kids at school then

Or do you think ds1 is embroidering the truth a little...

I did Latin GCSE, which included Classical Civilisation modules. IME, because Latin is a 'hard' language, exams were made 'easier' iyswim - I didn't find it difficult to get a good grade in it. Stick with the Latin, keep your options open, it's great!

I did Latin and ancient greek at high school (in Italy). It is not the language that gets harder, once you've covered the basic grammar, it's the difficulty of what you are translating that rises. But surely what's the point in doing Latin if you don't study the literature and roman history. Is this covered in Latin or in the Ancient civilization?

think it depends which exam board it is - although I believe the "easier" board has now dropped Latin. DD1 will be doing OCR which includes a Roman civilisation paper, but (thank goodness) no coursework.

Did anyone use Ecce Romani? I loved that - better than Neighbours any day.

Gripping stuff, like, when Sextus and Marcus, like, totally, ran away from their tutor in the town

Ecce in pictura est puella nomine Cornelia...

Bobsmum YES! It was great wasn't it?! We always used to snigger at Sextus

Found book 4 in the loft the other day - must've nicked it from school

Ah - those vocab lists and lovely line drawings !

YES! bobsmum. there was a bit of raciness in book 3, when Cornelia was going to marry Valerius IIRC.

Just googled it - says "old fashioned but still usable" lol

Ecce Romani - better than Sunset Beach

What a mature ds. FWIW yes I think classical civ would be dumbing down, does he understand/agree with the schools reasons? However, how important do you feel good marks are? (I'm not a uni admissions tutor ) but would they prefer a B in latin or an A in classical civ? What does he see himself studying in the future? Latin really is good for the brain, I'm thinking about trying to learn it again people with a good classical eduation can be so clever.

Will he put the effort in?

I didn't do either. So asked DH. He says that switching to classical civ is not dumbing down, but that latin gives you marginally widers options. However, he also says that if you're more interested in classical civ (which is likely to be more fun to learn) then you're far more likely to do well.

Tigermoth, I think your DS has asked a very good question and although most of the posters here have suggested he continue with latin, I'm inclined to say go for the one he's going to enjoy the most.

Does your son realise he'll get to read something interesting (sex and death, lots of teenage interest ) if he sticks with the Latin?

Well, everyone else has made a lot of serious pro-Latin points which I utterly agree with.