Virtual Reality is regularly heralded as a tool which will revolutionise teaching and education, yet little research has been done into its use and, in particular, into its use with secondary school students. Through a case study of a Year 13 Classical Civilisation class this article investigates student perceptions of the use of Virtual Reality in the Classics classroom and its impact upon their learning. This study demonstrated students' positive attitudes towards the use of Virtual Reality and that it appeared to have a positive and lasting impact upon their understanding of Ancient Greek sanctuaries. The study is limited in its scale – both in terms of student numbers and time period – but it can, I hope, offer encouragement for greater use of, and research into, Virtual Reality within the secondary Classics classroom.

Over the past decade, the literacy rate of the pupils I teach has been declining. This has led to some problems with GCSE Classical Civilisation, where pupils are not strong enough readers to fully access the prescribed sources. To counter this, one of my former colleagues suggested that we use the Classic Tales resources as the basis for our Year 9 course (students aged 13). The aim is to teach the pupils as much mythology as possible, which is an excellent foundation for the myth and religion unit, and to get them to read as much as we can, using the interactive reader, pdf transcripts, and recordings of the stories to engage all pupils in the class. The aim of this paper is to discuss the successes and failures of this strategy.

The incorporation of Plato into the current OCR Classical Civilisation A Level syllabus, as part of the Love and Relationships topic (LR) presents a challenge for the classroom teacher. While the specification makes study of Plato mandatory the content description in practice effectively relegates the topic to the side-lines. Having described this problem the article goes on to suggest how Plato's ideas can be taught within the framework of the existing specification in a pupil-friendly manner which is true to the spirit of Plato's own philosophical practice.

The lessons planned in this essay were designed for a group of Year 7 students in an independent girls’ school in London. Their course of study for Classics in Year 7 was a general introduction, involving beginners’ Greek and the rudiments of Latin, but largely focused on learning about Greek mythology, Homeric epic and Roman culture. Wright's Greeks & Romans textbook was often used in class, but the content was chosen and materials designed by the class teacher. I began teaching this class just as they were finishing Greek mythology and beginning to study the Iliad and Odyssey. The sequence of four lessons, based around the Underworld was intended to provide a re-cap of the Homeric material after they had studied the two epics, as well as exploring in further detail episodes which I had skipped over for the sake of brevity in the previous sequence, such as the Odyssey's katabasis. It also looked forward to studying Roman material in the next module by introducing the Aeneid in translation.

The Classical Association Teaching Board (CATB) surveyed Classics teachers in the United Kingdom from 20th August to 9th September 2020 to gauge views about the impact on teaching of the national lockdown during the covid-19 pandemic. 164 teachers from both the state and independent sectors completed the survey. There were three areas of focus in the survey. First, the impact on pupils of the grade awarding process after the cancellation of GCSE and A Level examinations in 2020. Second, how confident teachers were in preparing for the 2021 examinations after the loss of five months of face-to-face teaching. Third, reactions to Ofqual's consultation process on changes to the format of the 2021 examinations. This article brings together the responses to the survey and details how the unprecedented closure of schools affected the teaching of Classics. It will also explain how the CATB continues to support Classics teachers and the teaching of classical subjects in UK schools.

Within this article I aim to explore how greater student dialogue in the classroom can drive engagement with ancient drama. As part of the Classical Civilisation A Level specification, students need to demonstrate knowledge and awareness in the examination of how Aristophanes’ Frogs might have been performed on stage and its possible reception by a classical audience. This research investigates how teachers can effectively encourage student discourse in the classroom for students to engage with and analyse Frogs as a piece of comic drama, rather than simply as an A Level set text.