At the end of another day of industrious academic pursuits, when lesser mortals trudge weary-limbed up to their dormitories and retire to their beds for a well-earned mug of cocoa and to repose their cudgelled brains or ‘Dailies’ slump exhausted into the backs of cars to be whisked home for supper there is a group of brave and stalwart scholars, of intellectual warriors if you will that, blind to the fatigues of a gruelling day, make their way diligently and excitedly to ‘English1’ to Latin club where they have embarked upon the Cambridge course of Latin for beginners that could, if they so choose, lead to an Entry Level qualification.

This extra-curricular course sees a splendid mix of Fyling Hall’s best from all over the world: from Spain to Korea, Germany to the United States of America and of course those native to these great isles all coming together to learn this classical and wonderful language. The course is open to students of all ages too, and indeed we have scholars from year 7 to year 13 in attendance as well as our very own Mr. Instone (who has shown himself to be a most capable linguist).

Studying Latin will help our scholars in a whole range of different ways from giving them a better understanding of the English language through linguistic etymology as well as those studying some of the other Romance languages here at Fyling Hall. It also helps with understanding many of the Latin words used throughout the sciences, medicine and law and we also cover a good deal of Roman history as we learn about Roman civilisation and life and some of our scholars are using it as the ‘skill’ element of their Duke of Edinburgh Award.

Let’s hear from some of our intellectual warriors . . .

“It’s really good and it gives you something extra that lots of other people don’t learn.”– Sam year 8

“I really like learning something new and something that’s a bit different. I also like Latin Club because it gives you new friendship groups.”– James year 9

“It’s really interesting and helps me to learn lots of other languages.” – Juan year 9

“It’s great fun and helps me with lots of my other subjects.” – Aubrey year 7

“Learning Latin helps me across lots of my other subjects, like learning other languages and with lots of words in science. I’m really interested in understanding where our words and vocabulary come from and Latin helps me with this.” – Jimena year 11

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