From joining with the UCD Classics Museum to welcome large school groups to UCD to helping an amazing class of primary-school children in Falkirk, Edinburgh, say “hello” in Ancient Greek, it’s been a hectic year for Access Classics! With the arrival of the end of term, this is the perfect time to sit back, look at some highlights of Access Classics’ activities since September 2021 and, most importantly, thank everyone who helped make this our most successful year yet!

School visits

School visits remain at the heart of Access Classics. Although the scourge of Covid-19 limited the possibility of face-to-face visits at the beginning of the school year, the tide began to turn as we approached Christmas, when, not only did we have the opportunity to visit schools again, but we were even accompanied by some of the UCD students on our Access Classics module (more on this later!). Our largest visit coming up to Christmas was to Gonzaga College SJ, where, with the invaluable support of the teachers, we were able to run four simultaneous activities, meeting all first-year students in one morning!

With the New Year came a lot of interest in Access Classics visits, and over the following months we were delighted to interact with lots of schools and students both online and in person. A particular highlight was heading out to Loreto Bray early in the year to meet all the TY students, who enthusiastically threw themselves into the task of writing and translating Ancient Greek! Thank you to all the schools and teachers who reached out to us and helped so much during the visits!

Collaborative visits/events

The overarching aim of Access Classics this academic year was collaboration, and we were particularly delighted to expand our working relationship with the UCD Classics Museum, under the careful guidance of the curator, Dr Jo Day. Along with a number of smaller visits, the combined forces of the Classics Museum and Access Classics ran two large visits from Gorey Community School and St Conleth’s College in May, in which the students were broken into smaller groups and rotated between activities in and outside the museum. Although this involved some careful logistical planning (and lots of running around campus!), we were delighted to welcome so many students to UCD and to chat to them about Classics!

Access Classics was delighted to be asked to give a sample lecture at an Access and Lifelong Learning (ALL) Future You event in early May: the opportunity to introduce 150 DEIS school students to monsters in the ancient world was too good to pass up! Looking ahead, we are excited to collaborate (through ALL) with colleagues in other colleges for the Creative Arts Summer School in June, especially as this is the first year of our involvement that will be face to face! We have met some really amazing people at the online Summer Schools over the past two years and can’t wait to meet everyone in person this year!

Access Classics’ Dr Bridget Martin and Dr Christopher Farrell put on their judging hats for the second year in a row and joined colleagues from Maynooth University, Trinity College Dublin and the Classical Association of Ireland Teachers (CAIT) to judge the CAIT Young Classicist Awards in May. The level of creativity and engagement was incredibly high this year, and it was no small feat to pick the winners from among the many deserving entries. The Awards have been growing in popularity and scope every year, and we are looking forward to next year’s entries already! As an added bonus this year, the UCD School of Classics became the sponsor for the Palma Lingua Antiqua award which is given for a project based on, or with a large component dedicated to, Latin and/or Ancient Greek (see the winners for this award here)! Well done to all the entrants and to the organisers of this wonderful event!

Resources

It has been very gratifying this year to see the Access Classics Transition Year Unit on Classical Studies used (in whole or in part) in so many schools, and we have really enjoyed hearing how teachers are using it, what aspects students enjoy and also some ideas for future iterations of the Unit (keep the comments and suggestions coming!). If you haven’t come across our Unit yet, you can download a copy of the teaching manual and accompanying PowerPoint by clicking on the images below (if you have any questions about the Unit, just drop us an email: access.classics@ucd.ie / bridget.martin@ucd.ie). You can also find more TY resources under our Transition Year Unit tab, and make sure to check out our resources for the Junior and Senior Cycle also!

Speaking of the TY Unit, a highlight this year was visiting Ardgillan College, where the amazing teachers Ms Murry and Mr Walsh hope to begin introducing Classics to their students through the Unit in September 2022. We really cannot wait to hear how this goes, and we are delighted to be involved in any way with this wonderful project. Good luck with it, and may many more schools follow!

Student news

In the autumn term, Dr Martin Brady, Dr Christopher Farrell and Dr Bridget Martin ran the Access Classics module in UCD for the second time, this time face to face! During this module we train the students to “design and deliver a portfolio of teaching materials in a variety of media” to second-level students. As with last year, the students enthusiastically threw themselves into the module and produced some great work, including a weekly radio show on UCD’s Belfield FM to discuss Classics! As an added bonus, two of the students visited their former secondary schools to talk to some of the students there: thanks a million to Loreto College, Foxrock, and St Fintan’s High School, Sutton, for accommodating this. You can check out the Twitter account the students maintained for the module here.

Getting the message out!

On our home turf in UCD, Access Classics was able to spread the word about our initiative and, more importantly, hear all about the initiatives of our colleagues in the School of Arts and Humanities through an outreach event organised by the School’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee. After listening to our colleagues speak about their Schools’ initiatives, we can safely say the future of outreach is in safe hands! Thank you to Dr Joe Twist and Access Classics’ own Tasneem Filaih for organising this event! Thank you also to the Principal of the UCD College of Arts and Humanities, Professor Sarah Prescott, for her continued support and for inviting us to speak about our initiative at the College Council recently – it was a lovely way to bring the semester’s events to a close! And, finally, to round out a great year in UCD, we had the pleasure of attending a long-delayed in-person ceremony for the UCD Values in Action Award which the team won in 2020! Hearing about the activities and initiatives of the other winners made for a great afternoon!

Beyond UCD, Access Classics’ Dr Bridget Martin joined Lisa Doyle (Trinity College Dublin) and Helen Meaney (Classics Now festival) for the Hublic Sphere Podcast in January to talk about bringing Classics to the public. Thank you so much for Lisa for the invitation to contribute and for the insightful questions and comments during the podcast. Hearing Helen speaking about the amazing work done through the Classics Now festival was a real treat! In a similar vein, Bridget was pleased to join Dr Louise Maguire, Dr Arlene Holmes-Henderson and Ms Aryn Penn to speak about “Classical Subjects in Schools: An Update from Ireland” for the Classical Influences and Irish Culture (CLIC) seminars. Using Access Classics as an example, Bridget spoke about Classics outreach in Ireland.

Thank you!

As usual, we are incredibly grateful to everyone who has supported and interacted with us over the 2021/22 academic year. It has been a very heartening experience to once again visit second-level schools and throw open the doors of UCD to the students: thank you to all of the teachers and students we met this year, and we hope to see you again next year! Thank you to Dr Jo Day for being so accommodating with the UCD Classics museum and with trusting us to bring some artefacts with us on school visits! Thank you to Eleanor Kellett and Maria Wood for their always-wonderful podcasts and help. And thank you to the UCD School of Classics and the College of Arts and Humanities for their constant support.

Keep an eye on the website for any updates/new resources, and get in touch at any point if you have any questions or would like to talk about a visit! Goodbye for now from the Access Classics team: Bridget, Christopher and Tasneem!

With lots of new resources coming on-stream soon, this is the perfect time to take stock of what is currently available for teachers, students and members of the public on our website and also to point out some upcoming highlights!

In podcast land, we are continuing with our popular “Greek gods in under five minutes” series! Over the coming weeks and months, our wonderful podcasters Eleanor and Maria will introduce us to Apollo, Artemis, Hermes and Dionysus! Last week, we also launched a second podcast series! These podcasts deal with things we often get wrong about the ancient world, again in under five minutes! We began with an introduction to the surprisingly colourful world of ancient buildings and temples. You will find this and all of our podcasts under the “podcast” tab. Happy listening!!

We are currently building up our stock of resources for the Junior Cycle, particularly for the core component of the specification, so keep an eye out for our upcoming resources on daily life, looking in particular at objects and artefacts associated with daily life. These will join our current resources on mythology (including a new resource on the connection between Greek mythology and the names for certain birds, etc. – click on the image above for a copy of this resource!) and Greek and Latin classroom posters! For the Senior Cycle, both outgoing and incoming, a video on Greek art will soon join our videos and PowerPoints on Alexander, Virgil, Greek funerary practices, Greek tragedy and Roman architecture!  

Our Transition Year resources are ever-expanding! In addition to the extensive core manual and accompanying PowerPoint, you will find resources for Ancient Greek (wordsearch), the Parthenon, the Casino at Marino and Heracles & Monsters! Soon, we will be adding a walking tour of Classics-associated sights in Ireland!

We are delighted to announce the return of our mythology podcast: once again, sit back and allow our wonderful podcasters, Eleanor Kellett and Maria Wood, to introduce you to some of the main gods from the Greek Pantheon, each in under five minutes! This time around, we will meet Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes and Dionysus! Keep an eye on our Twitter (@ClassicsUCD) so you don’t miss any episodes!

Also (*drum roll*), we will soon be launching a new series of short podcasts on the wonderfully broad topic of ‘Interesting Things in the Ancient World’! Have you ever wondered whether statues and temples were a riot of colour in the ancient world? Would you like to know more about ancient pirates, or the Amazons? If so, this is the series for you! More details to follow soon!

Access Classics is delighted to announce that the new cohort of students in the UCD Access Classics module have taken over the @AccessClassics Twitter feed! Over the coming months, our wonderful students will be using @AccessClassics to spread the word about all things Classical – we can’t wait to see what you come up with! You will find the feed on the right-hand side of our webpages, and please consider supporting our students by following @AccessClassics!

Attention all Transition Year teachers! We are delighted to announce that we can supply schools with a tailored certificate for their students who complete the Access Classics TY Unit, or complete aspects of it as part of a Unit. Simply get in touch (bridget.martin@ucd.ie; access.classics@ucd.ie), and we can tailor the certificate to your school! If you have not seen our TY Unit yet, you will find the Teaching Manual, accompanying PowerPoint and additional resources under the Transition Year Unit tab. We would be delighted to answer any and all questions and would love to hear from any teachers planning to use the Unit!

Access Classics is excited to be part of the virtual Creative Arts Summer School 2021! This free Summer School, which is funded by the Department of Education and Skills Programme for Access to Higher Education (PATH) fund, aims to introduce participants from underrepresented groups to different pathways to higher education. It is a collaborative project run by the National College of Art and Design, MTU Crawford College of Art, Marino Institute of Education, RCSI University of Medicine & Health Sciences, University College Dublin, Institute of Art, Design and Technology, and Trinity College Dublin. During the Summer School, participants will be given the opportunity to participate in a virtual programme of, for example, creative arts workshops, campus tours and informative talks on course options and various student supports. Access Classics will give their workshop “Classics: The ancient world today” on 24 June. You can find more information on this exciting initiative here and here.

Access Classics is delighted to be shortlisted for the Best Education Outreach Award for the Education Awards 2021! Congratulations to all those shortlisted – more information on each can be found here. We look forward to meeting everyone virtually during the online ceremony in May!

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!

Attention all language lovers!!

Access Classics is delighted to join forces with the SPARC UCDictionary project in order to bring you an exciting competition! To enter, fill out the form at this link with your favourite Latin or Greek word(s) by 5 April 2021 and you could win a One4All voucher. The total prize value is up to €100!

If you would like to enter a word but are unsure of how to enter the original Greek script, just send us an email at access.classics@ucd.ie and we can help. We look forward to reading your great entries!

The launch of our website (accessclassics.ie) last Wednesday brought a spring to our step during a dreary January! Our webinar event, hosted by the Head of the School of Classics, Dr Martin Brady, comprised the Access Classics team (Ms Tasneem Filaih, Dr Bridget Martin and Dr Christopher Farrell) giving an overview of the programme and invited panellists from schools which have participated in the programme from its infancy describing what Access Classics has brought to their schools and students.

Firstly, Dr Martin Brady introduced co-director of the programme Dr Bridget Martin, who discussed the aims and methodology of Access Classics. Dr Martin also discussed her Transition Year Unit, which she referred to as Access Classics’ “Trojan Horse” as it has the potential to introduce Classics to secondary schools throughout Ireland which currently cannot or do not offer Classics as a subject, as well as offering additional resources to those schools which do currently offer Classics and/or the Classical languages. Co-director Dr Christopher Farrell then spoke about current resources for the Junior and Senior Cycle Classics offerings (featured on our website!) and future resources to come down the line.

Mr Danny Delany, who is a Classics teacher in St Fintan’s High School, Sutton, discussed his class’ school trip to the UCD campus, hosted by Access Classics. The students were given a tour of the campus by UCD students and a tour of the Classical Museum by Dr Christopher Farrell and Dr Bridget Martin. He explained that the students were delighted to examine artefacts in person, bringing to life what they had previously seen only in pictures in school books! The excitement of this trip and a school visit by the Access team, Mr Delany said, generated conservation about and awareness of Classics as a subject in his school and is encouraging uptake of the subject. Mr Delaney also discussed an online session hosted by Dr Farrell during the pandemic, which his students enjoyed immensely!

Dr Louise Maguire, head of Latin in Blackrock College, also discussed her and her students’ experience as one of the pilot schools for the Access Classics programme. During her presentation, Dr Maguire described her students’ joy at being able to handle artefacts from the ancient world during an object handling session and showed some very interesting examples of the Transition Year Unit resources being used in the classroom, particularly those related to language! Dr Maguire also highlighted the benefit of having a ready source of information for pupils to ask about the pursuit of Classics at third level, and she explained the value of the sense of community which the programme can bring to teachers and students alike.

The website launch ended with a quick reflection on what would be coming soon to the website, how schools could engage and interact with Access Classic, and the current and upcoming social media tools generated and overseen by Ms Tasneem Filaih, co-founder and team member of Access Classics. Dr Brady ended the webinar by thanking all attendees for joining and the panellists for presenting. He also offered special congratulations to the Access Classics team on their recent (December 2020) UCD Values In Action award!

Access Classics would like to thank once again Dr Louise Maguire and Mr Danny Delaney for sharing their and their students’ experiences of Access Classics and everyone who gave up an hour of their very limited time to join us for the launch! Make sure to keep an eye on our website for new resources and to keep up to date with our news, and get in contact if you have any questions, requests or suggestions!