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The Iris Project: Latin in inner city schools
Dr Lorna Robinson, director of the Iris Project, outlines her work in primary schools teaching Latin to young learners.
A few years ago, frustrated at the way in which Latin was largely taught only in private or other selective schools, I decided to found the Iris Project, a charity dedicated to promoting access to Classical subjects in state schools. In May 2006 I was contacted by the chair of Governors at Benthal primary school in Hackney. He commented that it would be an amazing thing if Latin could be taught on the curriculum in a school where there was such a broad ability range, where most of the children were on free school meals and where so many different languages were spoken at home. In September 2006 I was ready to start teaching Latin in the Literacy time table to two year five classes at the school.
The lesson plans were designed to support and enhance the national curriculum literacy strategies, and to provide an enjoyable, unique and accessible introduction to Latin for large mixed-ability classes. I based them around a series of activities, which included Latin and storytelling using the wonderful myths of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Activities involved a whole range of activities, from using jigsaw pieces to teach inflection, making spider webs to display how Latin and English words were connected, and composing postcards to imaginary Roman children, to making road signs to teach imperatives, and writing curse tablets and ancient menus to broaden vocabulary and introduce aspects of culture.
The children loved it. Arthur, nine, said he was keen to carry on with the subject, commenting “It’s interesting — and not that hard”. Johanna, nine, said: "I think it's really interesting. We've done a lot of fun stuff and it helps me with some words when we're doing literacy. My mum is Brazilian and the Latin helps me with my Portuguese." Humayra, ten, added: "I find it fun and it's different from anything else I've done. I can speak Bengali but it's not very similar to Latin. I think Latin helps me most with writing in Literacy lessons."
The scheme had been so successful that I decided to approach other schools in the area, primary and secondary, to see what interest there was in it being expanded. By the time September 2007 came around, I had twenty schools in Hackney ready to start up Latin on the Literacy curriculum, which reached over 700 children, and a team of student teachers from University of London to deliver the course. The success of the expansion has been most notable in schools where the teachers have viewed the Latin as enriching Literacy, for the value of the project lies in nurturing a love and fascination for languages, and a curiosity about their complexity and variety. The Latin has helped the children explore the roots of the English language, and they still gasp with wonder sometimes when I point out the Latin derivation of an English word they use the whole time.
At the end of this academic year, I will be looking at the SATS results of the classes to see if there has been any impact on the children's Literacy results, and I am in discussions with schools in other boroughs of London with a view to broadening the scheme.
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