In September 2010, two voluntary after-school classes for Year 7 boys were started.

The hour-long class is packed with language studies, explanations of grammatical terms, references to Roman culture and history, and an introduction to famous Romans and their deeds. Each session starts with the date in Latin and a Latin motto.

Latin is one of the most logical languages, so an understanding of its structure helps the boys to improve their English, whilst the classes also develop a greater understanding of other languages they are learning.

Boys are expected to commit to a minimum of an hour’s independent work each week to enable them to practise newly gained vocabulary and unfamiliar word-endings for nouns and verbs.

Pupils taking these classes will sit the OCR Entry Level Latin examination which is being run for the first time this year. The qualification provides a first stepping stone towards GCSE Latin.