Heads up for helping hands

Saturday 20th June saw the Hands Up [Suburani] Summer Conference in the Museum of London - soon to become the London Museum when it reopens to the general public later this year in the old Smithfield market buildings - a fantastic space for their huge collection.

As is always the case, the Hands Up Conference showcased a good number of options for Classics teachers. The ones I went to included talks on Handling Artefacts, Reading Latin from Left to Right, Ideas for Retrieval Practice and Prep for GCSE Literature options, but there were two more other options in each of those groups - so there was plenty for everyone.

The final academic talk was given by my old friend Professor Richard Alston, from Royal Holloway College, on the topic of why it is a responsibility for us as teachers to teach Roman slavery as it was - which gave us plenty of evidence for teaching it but also plenty of reason for us to do so.

Richard Alston (R) and me

When I started teaching in 1988 there were four or five local state schools in Havering, East London, which did Classics. The one I was at, Campion School, when I joined, had Latin and Classical Greek at both GCSE and A level, and Ancient History at A level. The school down the road, The Sacred Heart of Mary, had Latin and Classical Civilisation; over the way, Coopers had some Latin; further afield there was more Latin and some Classical Civilisation - a smattering, but enough to make it worthwhile for the Local Education Authority to bring us together. It was rumoured that there was some Latin in Dagenham, but we never went that far. In the next boroughs, Brentwood County High, Ilford County High and Woodford County High all had flourishing Classics Departments.

Each year, the Local Education Authority put on subject specialist days, when we met up with each other for a day of learning what was new, coming up with teaching ideas, exchanging notes and networking. At the time I was grateful for this - not perhaps quite as much as I should have been - but as a newcomer to the world of teaching it was great to meet up with people who were on your wavelength, understood without a second thought what a subjunctive was and why it mattered and all the camaraderie that comes with meeting people who share a common interest. Particularly as there were very few of us about and getting together was otherwise very difficult.

As time moved on, the Local Education Authorities had their powers slowly taken away Indeed, Local Education Authorities were disbanded; education provision moved to a small department within Local Authorities, spending and decision-making was devolved to some (but not all) schools; and, with the academisation movement, centralised planning disappeared. This was not an accident: it was designed by successive Tory governments so that the supposed malign influence of 'socialist-run' Education Authorities could be reduced and eventually removed, in favour of a 'what works in the classroom' approach could spread out fully through the education system.

We are left with a hotch-potch of contrasting systems (hence the picture of the mosaic at the top): some stand-alone academy schools, free from the Local Authority, and funded direct by the DfE; some groups of schools in Multi-Academy Trusts, funded direct from the DfE and spread here, there and everywhere; and some schools (mostly primaries) which are still attached to their original Local Authorities, and funded through them. What was a system was deliberatly destroyed.

And those subject networks have become increasingly difficult to maintain in the face of such fragmentation.

One way in which alternative networks have built up has been through exam-focused professional development. inevitably, the focus there is not on something new, not on curriculum development, not on planning, not on thinking. Such networks are focused on examination compliance and the inculcation of inter-school competitiveness: how do I get my pupils to get that grade 9? How many examples do I need to get my pupils to write down for a 15-marker? Nothing wrong with this, of course. It's a product of the times that so much energy is spent on examination technique.

Another way is through social media. The pot-luck aspect of this needs no explanation.

A third way is through conferences, like this one at Hands Up, like the forthcoming one from CSCP (17th October), like the summer schools offered across the UK and beyond, like the ARLT and the JSST Latin, Ancient Greek and Classical Civilisation Summer Schools in July and August. Further afield, there's the ACL in Williamsburg the USA, Cultura Classica in Spain, Euroclassica this year in Tbilisi in Georgia. CPD is a regular feature of the Classical Association and Classics for All providers.

Any new entrant to the profession is advised to go on one of these - or more, if time and money allows. These are the new places where people meet up, exchange ideas, chat and talk. These are the places where the ideas of the future - the future curricula - will be seeded and will take root.

In the Hands Up conference, Ashey Carter gave the talk on GCSE set texts. An expert in examination development, he was subject leader for OCR Latin for many years, and continues his work with Eduqas Latin today. Jo Lashly, from WJEC was there. I feel like an old lag, these days and it was lovely to see several of my own ex-PGCE students there from across my career.

Ex-students, now Classics teachers: Juliana, Samantha, William, Louise, Amy.

Young teachers - talk to us! Use these opportunities to develop your network, to build up your contacts, to ask your questions. Classics is under threat at the moment like never before. You need to stick together.