Latest WCN News and Activities

WCN Update Academic Year 2024-2025

Introduction

(Left) Lego Colosseum building in progress (right) Will and Beth take all the glory completing the build

2024-2025 has been another great year for the Department of Classics and Ancient History and the Warwick Classics Network. In terms of numbers of students involved, this has been our most successful year to date, with over 75 of our Warwick students attending the WCN Academic Enrichment session in October, with 40 then signing up to the WCN engagement roles. Across the year these students have put in well over 250 hours of work as part of on campus events and school sessions, which will be great for them in terms of their future careers and prospects.

We want to thank the A. G. Leventis Foundation and Graham and Joanna Barker for their continued support of the WCN, without which none of the work we do would be possible. THANK YOU.

Working with Schools

Over the summer and during this current academic year the WCN has arranged for students to lead sessions at a range of Primary and Secondary schools, at school sessions on campus, and at other events such as Lunt Fort Roman Festival in Coventry.

(Above - Lily and Chloe in action at Lunt Fort, where they ran a Roman Cookery Workshop)

The Roman Cookery Workshop was created as a group project on the Public Engagement Module in 2023 and has been developed into its current format especially through the work of Chloe. Thank you, Chloe for all you have done to make this such a success – I know Emperor Chloe will be very much missed in Shipston. We are hoping Lily and a few others will carry on the good work.

On 8th January 7 of our students (Amelia R, Beth, Madison, Marni, Ela, Lily, and Kim) led two sessions on Roman topics including Lunt Roman Fort, Roman coins, and Roman Cookery with Y4 pupils (9-year-olds) at St Laurence's Primary School in Coventry.

Dear Dr. Grigsby,

We can't thank you enough for the wonderful workshop that your students provided for Year 4 today. They are an absolute credit to the university and we enjoyed having them with us. They conducted themselves in an exemplary manner and it was a pleasure to work with them.

Thanks also to you for providing this opportunity for our pupils. We would be eager to explore further opportunities for collaboration in the future. In 2025/6 Year 4 will be doing the Romans topic again!!

Karen Blackburn Y4 teacher St Laurence’s

Another Public Engagement Module group project, this time from 2025, was rolled out at the on campus Widening Participation taster day on 4^th March thanks to Amelia, Hols, Madison, Kim, Savannah and Lily. This amazing Archaeology Lesson-in-a-Box is a hands-on lesson-in-a-box style workshop developed to be portable and to provide pupils with a simulated archaeological excavation experience, with 3D printed artefacts from Lunt Roman Fort buried in almost-easily-portable sandboxes.

The lesson-in-a-box in action: a Roman coin unearthed by a budding archaeologist

Thank you for the fantastic Archaeology session that you delivered as part of our Year 5/6 campus visit on Tuesday 4 March. You clearly put a huge amount of work into developing the lesson and resources. It was well presented and organised, and the immersive nature of the activities meant that the children had a real taster of what it might be like to unearth Roman artefacts. There was some real excitement in the room as they found coins, a pot, a belt buckle, oil lap and cooking equipment. This sparked a good deal of discussions and questioning about how the items might have been used, and it built on the pupils’ prior learning about Romans during their history lessons. The teachers were very impressed too.

Joanne Spencer, Widening Participation Officer

A third Public Engagement Group Project – Ancient jewellery making – was taken into Barr’s Hill School, Coventry, on 8^th March for their y7 students. The session, led by Jemima, Amelia T, Beth and Niamh, was very well-received. This will be a very popular session we can deliver and lend to schools in the future, leading to more pupil engagement with the Roman history on their own doorstep and with potential for future development. The session involves practical jewellery making with metal wire and other equipment for something memorable that the pupils can take home.

(Above) Jemima helping a pupil design a ring

Other school sessions included our Public Engagement module Ancient Theatre Project also being taken into Barr’s Hill School on Friday 2^nd May by Colleen, Chloe, David, Emily and Fred. Here pupils were introduced to Greek theatre, the Agamemnon, and the realities of putting on a production such as the Ancient Drama Festival.

Emperors Chloe and Lily visited Shipston Primary School on 30^th April and Kingsway Primary on 23^rd May, where the minty melon salad seems to have gone down well.

(Above) Minty melon salad recipe design by a pupil at Shipston

On 31^st May our Archaeology Lesson-in-a-Box session was also introduced to school groups by Hols, Emily, Stella and Amelia R at the Resonate Festival, Saturday 31^st May.

And finally, another group of our WCN helpers, Emily, Hols, Chloe and Colleen will be visiting St. John's Primary School and Nursery, Kenilworth, on 30^th June to run a session on Ancient Greece, pottery and myths.

Annual Events

Ancient Drama Festival 2025 – Aeschylus’ Agamemnon

(Above) Gio Presotto as Cassandra

This year our annual Ancient Drama Festival took place on 30^th and 31^st January, with 442 school pupils from 29 schools attending our schools’ day and over 1,000 pupils and members of the public enjoying the performance in total. Alongside all the students involved in the production of this amazing play, Departmental Ambassadors and WCN helpers welcomed the crowds on the school day, providing amazing support as usual and inspiring the next generation of Warwick students.

The A. G. Leventis Ancient Worlds Day 8^th November 2024

The WCN A. G. Leventis Ancient Worlds Day 2024 on 8th November brought over 200 students and teachers from across the country to hear talks by our Warwick staff on a range of diverse topics linked to the Classical Civilisation and Ancient History GCSE and A-level curricula (and beyond). 24 of our WCN students were on hand to chaperone and answer questions about studying Classics here at Warwick, being the human and approachable face of the Department. And it worked - 92 of the 118 pupils who filled our feedback reported that were ‘more likely to apply to study at Warwick after today’s visit’.

Classical Civilisation Teachers Day 28^th February 2025

On 28th February 2025 we held our annual Classical Civilisation Teachers' Day. Our Warwick academics delivered lectures on all components of the OCR Classical Civilisation A-level specs, and 11 student helpers were on hand to meet and greet the teachers, deal with any questions and enquiries, and spread their characteristic enthusiasm. Many of the students were very excited to meet up with the teachers who had taught them and recommended that they come and study at Warwick.

Building Communities Schools Competition

Linked to Warwick’s 60 the Anniversary, we ran a countrywide competition for schools (part of which included buying the Colosseum for our own students to enjoy). In the competition, also ran by one of our Public Engagement groups, pupils created a piece of work on the theme of 'Building Communities' looking at ancient buildings/spaces and how these were used by communities in the ancient world. The winning entries each were awarded a Lego pyramid for their school.

The categories included creating something in Minecraft (a temple, or other public building), Creative Design (drawing, painting, digital design, and also building with Lego), and Creative Writing (storytelling, poetry, drama). Here are a few of the winning entries:

(Above) Morris (y6) Padbury School - the incredible edible Parthenon

(Above) Noah (y10) Manchester Grammar School - Lego Roman bath house

The Building Communities Public Engagement group also ran a session for 20 local pupils at FabFest on 17^th June. Pupils created artwork on the theme of ancient communities such as the Colosseum below:

Pupils then enjoyed trying out our VR headsets with the Ancient Athens app, and looking at our Lego Colosseum, which Robert O’Toole, the FAB academic digital technologist also scanned into sketchfab, allowing pupils to walk around our Lego Colosseum using AR.

As ever, a big thank you to the A. G. Leventis Foundation and Graham and Joanna Barker for your continued support of the WCN. But also a big thank you to the Department as a whole, especially to our HOD Prof David Fearn for his encouragement and joined up thinking and recognition that what we do here is unique, not just at Warwick, but countrywide. We are also incredibly lucky to have so many enthusiastic talented students willing to take time to develop skills for their future and in so doing enrich our local community. So thanks once again for being so amazing, and we look forward to plenty more of the same in the coming years.