2023 Virtual Course for School Teachers
The British School at Athens is delighted to invite UK school teachers to attend a free virtual CPD course, focusing on the theme ‘Myth & Religion: The Ancient Festival‘. Participants will follow a series of four virtual lectures, introducing the main themes of the module and providing new case studies beyond the school syllabus.
This year’s course will be conducted in four hour-long virtual lectures:
‘Urban festivals and rural territory in ancient Greek culture’
-Prof. Jason König (Professor of Classics, St Andrews)
Thursday 9th March, 4:30pm
‘Herakles and Olympia’
-Dr Georgios Mouratidis (Assistant Director, BSA)
Tuesday 14th March, 4:30pm
‘The competitive spirit: agonistic festivals in Hellenic and regional identity’
-Dr Paul Grigsby (Research fellow in outreach and impact), Warwick
Wednesday 15th March, 4:30pm
‘Ancient Greek festivals and educational tours. Komos or Pompe? Attempting to create’
-Mrs. Sarah Thomason (Joint fouder and Director Hellene School Travel)
Thursday 16th March, 4:30pm
- Information on the in-person course for teachers (not running in 2022)
The British School at Athens organises a four-day intensive course for school teachers of Greek civilisation in the UK and Ireland which explores Ancient Greek history and archaeology through site tours and lectures. The course covers a number of key subjects in the new GCSE and A level in Ancient History and Classical Civilisation syllabus.
Participants will follow a four-day programme combining tours of key sites, classes on interpreting and teaching material culture, group sessions on sharing and creating teaching resources, and workshops for writing lesson plans. The course is tailored closely to the current OCR and SQA syllabus, but will also be of interest to those who are unfamiliar with these particular exam specifications. By the end of the course, participants will have an excellent first-hand knowledge of the topography of Athens, and will have developed their own set of resources immediately ready for use in the classroom.
All participants will receive a museum pass, granting free access for one year to all public archaeological sites and museums in Greece. There will be a couple of hours of free-time built into the programme each day so that participants can explore Athens at their leisure, and we are happy to arrange (at an additional cost) extra days of accommodation in the BSA hostel before the start or after the end of the course. Throughout their stay participants will be full members of the BSA and will have full access to all School facilities, including the library.
The course fee of €400 includes half-board accommodation for four nights in the BSA hostel, travel between sites, entrance charges to sites and museums, a number of group dinners and lunches, and a resource pack with plans and study materials. Furthermore, the BSA is delighted to administer a number of bursaries of up to €200 (in certain circumstances, larger awards may be made). Travel to and from Greece is the responsibility of the course participants.
Please find below an indicative itinerary for this course.
- Resources for school teachers
The BSA is proud to use its collections and expertise to create resources for school teachers. Many of our resources map onto the OCR Classical Civilisation syllabus for GCSE and A Level but will be of interest to those teaching other classical subjects and specifications.
Our resources are hosted by our collaborators at The Classics Library and through the Warwick Classics Network platform ‘STOA’.
Resources created to date include:
– Image banks
– Introduction packs to our Video Archive and Digital Collections
– A series of four short videos on ‘The Homeric World’
