The annual INSET Day (Refresher Day) will be held on Saturday 7th March at Cherry Hinton Hall, Cambridge, home of the Cambridge International School, beginning at 10.30am. The director is Russell Lord, and the course secretary is Tracey Headland.

The cost, including lunch and all refreshments, is just £25.

There will be one keynote address, and the rest of the day will be taken up with discussion groups on topics that are relevant to practising teachers. Follow the link below for an application form, and for an invitation to introduce a group discussion on a topic you feel is important.

See the details here.

I have been sent a notice and programme for a 2-day conference at Yale, March 20-21.

Bob Lister is among the speakers.

The theme is teaching Latin and Greek as second languages, first in antiquity, secondly in the middle ages, and finally today.

The idea of crossing the Atlantic for a short visit reminds me of an experience that my brother had 20 or 30 years ago.

He had gone to the States for a longish residential conference, leaving his wife at home in Sheffield. He was, I think, the only European at the conference, and when the final evening’s dinner was drawing near, the others realised that he would be the only person there without a spouse, and secretly had a whip-round to raise the fare for Elizabeth to fly over for the evening. The famed American generosity in action, and the American attitude of ‘Why not do it?’.

She, however, thought like an Englishwoman, and declined the generous offer.

But perhaps a trip across the pond for 2 days is not out of the question!

News from Anne Dicks:

This year’s European CICERO competition will take place on Saturday March 21st at Cranleigh School in Surrey, with the usual glittering array of prizes. There is an advertising flyer and an entry form to download on the UK page of the competition’s website

The Bath Royal High School competition for Roman-based fiction s now been judged.

See the full report here.

Littlehampton Gazette (with picture)

Published Date: 26 January 2009
A FUN-FILLED day as roaming Romans was experienced by youngsters at West Park First and Middle School.
Pupils in years two and three at the school in Marlborough Road, Goring, spent the day learning what life would have been like in the Roman army.

They made their own shields, designed mosaics, acted out the Roman invasion and enjoyed a Roman feast.

There was also a guest appearance by an emperor, also known as Peter Neale, the head teacher, and an expert on Roman life gave a talk.

Rebecca Wren, first school leader, said: “The children’s costumes were wonderful and the day was a fantastic success.”

Evan Millner has clearly found a winning formula with his podcast version of an existing Latin course. The figures he reports make you wonder how many commuters with their mp3 players are not listening to their favourite pop singers but are actually absorbing the ablative absolute on their way home from work.

Anyway, congratulations to Evan on what he has done and is continuing to do for Latin.

More cheering news:

Latinum ( a simple google search for ‘latinum’ or ‘latin podcast’ will find it at the top of the list ) is approaching its second anniversary. The entire Adler course is almost all online - all 97 lessons of it, offering several hundred hours of structured Latin tuition.

In addition, Latinum offers a growing selection of Latin readings, and a huge vocabulary learning resource, neo-Latin colloquia, and resources specifically targetted at GCSE.

Over 3 300 000 ( 3 million three hundred thousand) individual audio episodes have been downloaded from Latinum so far, rather a lot of Latin.

Schola on http://schola.ning.com has its first anniversary at the end of the month, with over 780 members. People join every day. Schola now has a real time chatroom, which gets busy every day, with people forming friendships with others who have only Latin as a shared language of communication.
Schola also offers blog posts, a forum, Latin videos, and a huge photolexicon with over 3 500 labelled images.

Evan Millner.

Here’s the link. It’s from Art Daily, and the diadem is part of an Etruscan exhibition touring the USA.

Sunday Telegraph

Sir Mick Jagger’s interest in Latin is generally thought to be confined to his choice of women – who have included Bianca Jagger, a Nicaraguan; Luciana Morad, a Brazilian; and Vanessa Neumann, from Venezuela. The 65-year-old Rolling Stones singer has now revealed a fascination for Latin, the ancient language.

Sir Mick was looking around Latymer Upper School recently with Gabriel, his 11-year son by Jerry Hall, when he was shown into a classroom where a Latin lesson was taking place. The singer looked at the words on the board and found to his delight that he could understand them.

“He was thrilled that he could read it all,” says my man at the school, at which Gabriel may start in September, subject to passing an exam.

The fees for the west London school, which has been fully co-educational since 2004, are £13,470 a year. Sadly for Sir Mick, who is known to keep a close eye on the purse strings, Gabriel is unlikely to qualify for a means-tested scholarship.

Last year, Mandrake disclosed that Alan Rickman, who played Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films, was paying for a bursary at his alma mater. The actor followed in the footsteps of Hugh Grant and Mel Smith, his fellow Old Latymerians, who already fund bursaries.