The survival of Classical Greek as a subject is under threat in all schools, and we think that it is important not only to halt this decline, but in the longer term to reverse it.
The working party was formed by a group of Classics teachers, representing the state, independent and university sectors, who have worked together at the JACT Greek Summer School over many years, along with representatives from Classics for All and the Classical Association. We are all passionate about ensuring that Classical Greek can flourish and as many learners as possible are given the opportunity to study this language. Thus, we wanted to address the obvious need for as wide a foothold as possible for entry-level Greek in schools to enable the survival of the higher-level qualifications. This foothold must exist in schools if there are to be pupils and teachers able to pursue and teach the subject to higher levels, and to drum up interest and demand for these higher levels.
We support the EMACT Level 1 certificate (recently revamped by CfA) for beginners and want the ICCG to sit at a level between this and the GCSE. Either for students to sit on the way to GCSE or for students who will never do enough Greek for the GCSE to be achievable.
We know that there are more and more non-specialist teachers of Greek, and we hope that the resources and easily-accessible advice on this site will be of great use to them and encourage others. CfA continue to be a huge help for non-specialist teachers and there is full funding available for teacher places at the JACT Greek summer school, where the teaching is directly relevant to the ICCG specification.
It is essential that this should be an accessible qualification. See below for our Equality Impact Assessment.
Working Party:
Cathy Bothwell, Chris Burnand, Henry Cullen, David Langslow, Claire Le Hur, Stuart Macaulay, John Taylor, Julian Spencer(all JACT Greek Summer School), Eliot Maunder (Website).
Hilary Hodgson (Classics for All).
Sharon Marshall (Classical Association).