Chrissy, Sarah and Eilidh are among 19 Monifieth High School pupils who will sit a Latin exam next year.
With the language back on its timetable, the Angus school is one of only a handful of Scottish state schools to offer a qualification in the subject which has suffered almost terminal decline since being widely taught generations ago.
For Chrissy Batchelor, in S6, it’s about bringing back a “dead language” she learned to love in Roman Catholic mass.
And for her teacher George Connor it’s also about correcting the “injustice” that Latin is far less likely to be offered to state school children in Scotland than to their privately-educated peers.
This year not one pupil from a local authority school in Angus, Dundee or Perth and Kinross was put forward for a Latin qualification in National 5, Higher or Advanced Higher.
Fewer than 30 pupils sat a Latin exam in Fife, where the subject is taught in Madras College and Kirkcaldy High School.
Latin in Scottish state schools
Scotland-wide there were just under 600 candidates. But fewer than a fifth of those were from local authority schools.
After successfully reintroducing classics to the Monifieth curriculum, Mr Connor is now teaching his first National 5 Latin class.
And in future years he hopes to have Higher pupils, and that other schools will follow suit.
As The Courier joined his class, Chrissy told us: “It’s a dead language and I just want to bring it back. I want all schools to do it.”
She grew up with Latin in Roman Catholic mass but says she lost it by the time she got to secondary school.
She says: “It feels so good to get back into something I love, and I genuinely do love it.”
Chrissy wants to be become a musical theatre teacher, and points out Latin is still commonly used in stage directions.
Classmate Sarah Ramsay, also S6, says: “I took it for the bragging rights! To say I know the language, or could read it at least.
“It’s not easy [to learn] but you can understand how English derives from it. Little things like terra [Earth] for terrain. It makes sense.
“I’m not sure it will help me in my career because I want to do therapy, but it will expand my vocabulary.”
Watch: What does Latin sound like? And why learn a “dead” language?
The fact that S6 pupils like Chrissy, Sarah and classmate Eilidh Mutten are doing a Nat 5 course – normally done in S4 – alongside their Highers speaks volumes of the allure of Latin.
And Mr Connor is delighted that he is able to give them that chance.
His passion for the ancient language and classical studies, he says, is only half of what fires him to campaign for wider teaching of it.
He says: “The other thing is, it’s such an injustice.
“I don’t think every pupil should take Latin; that’s as insane as saying every pupil should take physics or any other subject.
“But I do think they should be given the chance.”
Latin in state schools, he says, has been in decline for many years.
Test your Latin knowledge in our quiz and translate well-known mottos
“It used to be the case that every state school in Scotland had a Latin teacher and a classics department and over the last 30 years that has declined and declined and declined to the point that now across Tayside almost no state school offers Latin at all.
“I don’t want to suggest Latin is in rude health in private schools, but it is in much better health in private schools.”
Having joined Monifieth High as English teacher, Mr Connor persuaded his head teacher to allow him to run classical studies classes.
He also works with St Andrews University on the St Andrews Latin Outreach Scheme (STALOS) project to promote Latin in schools.
Through this, Monifieth High launched a 10-week course of lunchtime Latin lessons last year. These have now been extended to Grove Academy, in Broughty Ferry, and another school will join the scheme next year.
Mr Connor said: “I’m so proud of what the school leadership did in terms of getting this on the school timetable.
“They employed me as an English teacher nine years ago and now I teach maybe one English class a week. It’s all classical now.”
Take-up of classical studies is “very good”, he says.
“Pupils love Greek mythology. They come for Greek mythology and they stay for Roman mythology and Julius Caesar and so on.
“I was expecting a small number to put themselves forward for Latin but it speaks to the adventure of kids at Monifieth that they saw something that looked a little bit different and thought ‘I’ll have a go at that’.
“We have 19 pupils now doing National 5 Latin.
“Into the future we would love to see it flourish into Higher and beyond.
“We now just have to prove there’s an appetite.”
Conversation