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In the US the use of extensive reading in Latin for school students to develop vocabulary growth and attain reading fluency is an emerging classroom practice. To meet the demand for resources, a small but growing number of teachers have started to make available self-published short Latin stories or ‘novellas’, designed to provide students with extensive reading material in Latin at an age-appropriate level for novice and intermediate level students. There are now over 100 such short books, written in Latin, on a variety of topics, suitable for beginner and intermediate students (typically of between one and two years taught Latin). This article contains three areas of interest: the rationale, challenges and successes of writing and using these resources in the school classroom; a snapshot survey of a range of publications, to give readers a ‘flavour’ of the materials; and some further reading.

This article describes the ways in which four non-specialist Latin teachers are introducing Latin to their schools1. The interviews reported here took place in four secondary schools in London and the South-East in 2019. The interviews were informal and were held with the teachers while I was consultant on behalf of the charity Classics for All while training non-specialists to introduce Latin into their schools, where no classical subjects had been offered previously. Teachers use Latin to meet Ofsted targets for the uptake of the English Baccalaureate (henceforth EBacc2) and to provide a broad and ambitious curriculum for all students. Resources and subject knowledge provide intellectual challenge and also stimulation. In conclusion I recommend greater support from the Department for Education (DfE) working with subject organisations to develop a coherent strategy for introducing classical subjects in state-maintained schools in order to support DfE and Ofsted objectives.

Trainees were encouraged to tell a mythological story to the class, lasting about ten minutes. They could use props and other visual aids if they wished, but the emphasis was for them to practise speaking before the class, using prompt cards if necessary, and employing all the techniques of a professional oral ‘poet’ – such as gesture, eye contact, tone of voice and so on. There is obviously considerable general interest among younger students about mythology. Locally, interest is captured by the Cambridge School Classics project which puts on an annual Ovid Mythology competition and the website War with Troy is used by several of the schools where trainees are placed. Its use as a stimulus for learning has been well-documented by its author and past PGCE subject lecturer Bob Lister (2005, 2007) and by Walker (2018), a former teacher trainee from the faculty. Some of the Latin textbooks such as Minimus (Bell, 1999) and Suburani (Hands-Up Education, 2020) contain myth episodes and are familiar to the teacher trainees. The GCSE and A Level qualifications often contain mythological subject matter. Khan-Evans (2018) has shown how older students of Classics have retained deep-rooted affection for mythological stories in their earlier schooldays. Research into the power of mythological storytelling as a stimulus for learning, creative arts and even therapy is current, as the Our Mythical Childhood project (2020) has demonstrated. A book of the project's work is eagerly anticipated next year. The recent Troy exhibition at the British Museum has also awoken considerable interest.

Despite the challenges which are involved, some secondary schools show determination to get Classics onto the timetable and into their curricular provision. The following three case studies draw on interviews with the people directly involved in doing so: the Principals and the teachers themselves. These experiences were captured at the time when they were getting Classics into their schools. The first is derived from an interview with a qualified specialist Classics teacher, ‘Rachel’, working in London. Latin already had a presence there from when the school had employed a part-time teacher; the remit was the development of a full Classics department. The second is based on interviews with the school head teacher and a non-specialist Modern Languages teacher ‘Yvonne’ who had been employed to start a Classics department from scratch in a school in the Midlands. The third is based on an interview with the Principal of an academy which had decided to introduce Latin not only into her own school with a new teacher ‘George’, but also into one that was not yet built. The respondents’ real names have, of course, been changed.

This article examines how a number of teachers of Classics at secondary school level say they deal with sensitive topics, such as violence, religious belief, death and sex and sexuality. In the secondary school original texts are read partly for improving the students' understanding of the language and partly for the study of other aspects of the ancient society, such as the subject matter and the process of a legal case, for example. Therefore, sensitive topics often arise incidentally during the reading of a text rather than because they are the particular feature of the reading. Should teachers brush past such an topic for fear of causing offence or getting into trouble with school authorities or parents, or should they use the topic to develop their students' understanding of the topic at hand – and if the latter, how far should they go?

Apromenade lesson is when the learners get up and source, identify and evaluate information from materials attached to the walls of the classroom or a corridor or some other space in the school. The students have to walk around the ‘exhibits’ to find out something and note it down as they go. This activity can forms a part of a sequence of tasks in a lesson. It works well for any subject matter which is highly visual, such as images taken from Pompeian wall-paintings, for example, or even for enlarged text selections.