Weekend Reading: Exciting Times

Last weekend we held a celebration (online and in person in one of Durham University’s lovely Palace Green buildings) of all the exciting classical things that are happening in the North. I knew about a lot of them and have been right in the middle of a couple – but even I was taken aback by the scale of the plans and the extent of the opportunities. These really are interesting times to be living in the North-East!

For details of some of the research initiatives, I’ll refer you to the blog by Professor Edith Hall, whose energy and enthusiasm is propelling the research agenda into some fascinating areas. One of the most exciting things for me is the launching of the Durham PGCE in Classics, which will (for the first time in very many years) allow people to train as Classics teachers without having to move to London, Cambridge or Sussex. The complete absence of teacher training programmes from the North of England has been a major problem, because it has had a knock-on effect on the number of schools in the North that have an awareness of Classics as a subject area. The revival of the Durham programme has the potential to bring about significant changes across the North, and it will be exciting to see what happens as a result of it.

Here are some pictures of the day, featuring speakers Edmund Thomas, Jennifer Ingleheart, Edith Hall and Arlene Holmes-Henderson (I was speaking as well, but couldn’t take a photo of myself…!). What the photos don’t show is how many people came along to listen and chat. It was lovely to see old friends and make some new ones, and it made me realise just how much interest there is around here in creating a space to do new and different things.

We’ve also launched our Hadrian’s Wall Classical Association Branch website (which has been put together by me, using a combination of random button-pushing and wild optimism, so don’t expect much!). You can find it at https://hadrianswallca.wordpress.com/ – but do keep checking back, because we’ll be adding lots to it over the coming weeks and months. You can also sign up for membership. Here’s our logo… look out for us on Twitter @HadriansWallCA, and on other social media in the future!

I mentioned last week that #ClassicsTober, our annual art challenge, is coming up soon. Well, if you’re interested in getting involved with children, do check out this wonderful webpage from Maximum Classics, which will give daily background explanations of each word throughout October.

The week ahead is set to be a particularly exciting one for me, because my student lists are starting to come out! So by this time next week the site should have at least 100 new readers… and I’ll have to do my annual spring (!) clean of all the resources and general chaos on here. That should keep me out of trouble for a while! If there’s anything you’d like to see on the site, do drop me a line and I’ll add it to my list.