With three one-hour lessons a day, homework, and grammar clinics, it definitely helped me hone my Latin skills. But there were also a lot of opportunities to have fun. We were able to explore the nearby town of Harrogate in our free time, and I very much enjoyed eating food and browsing the charity shops. As a vital facet of our Classical education, we also watched Nolan’s Odyssey in the cinema. There were two trips, an optional outing to Hadrian’s Wall, and a whole-camp trip to York. These were a great way to learn about aspects of Roman life not related to what we were learning in lessons. I particularly enjoyed visiting Vindolanda (pictured above), the Roman military base that, due to the way it was built and rebuilt, had preserved wood and leather artifacts such as shoes and tablets. I also enjoyed the animatronics tour in the Jorvik Viking centre. I had a lot of fun taking part in the declamation competition, which involved reading Latin out loud, something which I was very interested to try for the first time. I also helped put together the costumes for the end-of-camp student play, and it was very rewarding to see this work pay off on the last day of camp. The student play was followed by the hilarious staff play, and then came the costume party, one of my favourite memories from the whole two weeks.

Overall, the Latin camp was an excellent experience. Not only was it a way for me to improve my Latin skills, but also meet people with the same interests as me, and explore aspects of Latin I had not explored before. The evening lectures and trips gave me a chance to explore everyday Roman society, and the declamation competition allowed me to try reading Latin aloud. As well as that, I found my Latin skills noticeably improving over just those two weeks. All in all, an amazing opportunity!

Sofie Rygielska, Year 13

A student from Year 11 also attended, and had this to say:

“I found the experience interesting, and it was good because it helped me retain the information taught last year.”

Kathirvelan Ramaswamy, Year 11

For information about next year’s JACT Summer School 2027, please visit https://latincamp.co.uk/ or email the head of Classics, Mr Risdon, at risdon_t@bexleygs.co.uk.