What a month! Access Classics has had a jam-packed few weeks – hold on to your hats…

Firstly, we were delighted to speak about our experience of setting up an education outreach programme at the UCD Agile Work Smarter Together 2021 Conference. It was great to share what we have learned and also to learn from others’ experiences – thank you and well done to all involved! Taking to heart the idea of working together, we joined forces with the fantastic SPARC UCDictionary team to create an exciting competition! Enter your favourite Ancient Greek or Latin word to the UCDictionary and you could win a prize! The competition is open until 5 April (see details in the post below) so there’s still time to enter!

Casting the net even wider, Access Classics was delighted to be part of the Creative Arts Spring School, an exciting initiative which gives participants the chance to take part in a virtual programme of, for example, creative arts workshops, campus tours and informative talks on course options and various student supports across six colleges and universities in Dublin. Through this Spring School, underrepresented groups are introduced to different pathways to higher education – how brilliant is that!? Access Classics was honoured to be part of this important initiative, and Dr Bridget Martin spent two wonderful Saturdays taking the engaged participants through a tour of connections between the ancient and modern world!

The Creative Arts Summer School is one of the projects of Dublin Learning City, a festival that promotes learning through an amazing range of creative online activities. With the encouragement of UCD Access and Lifelong Learning, Access Classics continued their participation in the festival by offering a virtual night at the UCD Museum! Dr Christopher Farrell took the audience through a ‘reading’ of a 2,300-year-old coin depicting Alexander the Great and Athena, the Greek goddess of war and wisdom! You can download the handout from the event in the post below!

Back on more familiar ground, Access Classics held online workshops in two second-level schools in early March, introducing the students to aspects of daily life in ancient Greece. Thank you to the Classics students and teachers of St Andrew’s and Sandymount Park ETSS for inviting us and being so attentive!

Speaking of online events…drumroll, please! Last week, we launched our podcast series on the ancient Greek gods, beginning at the top of the food chain with Zeus and Hera (click on the Podcast tab to have a listen!). Huge thanks to Eleanor Kellett and Maria Wood for their amazing work on the podcasts, and to Access Classics’ Tasneem Filaih for her editing wizardry! Working with the Classical Association of Ireland Teachers, we also released the first two of our videos addressing topics on the current Senior Cycle Classical Studies curriculum. Go to the Resources tab to listen to our videos on Greek Tragedy and Alexander!

Thank you so much to everyone involved in our activities this month!