STALOS: what’s next

After a successful launch in 2022, STALOS will continue to run this year, thanks to the generous support of the Classical Association. In fact, we are expanding our provision of Latin in the Scottish state sector. Not only will we offer lunch-time Latin classes at Monifieth High School to 20 new pupils, but we will be also sending our dazzlingly talented Postgraduate Latinists into Grove Academy, Dundee, to teach beginners Latin two a further 20 pupils. This will bring our newly learned Latinists in Tayside up to 60 in two years, which we think is pretty good going. We are also delighted to announce that, in part thanks to the STALOS programme, George Connor has managed to get Latin, alongside Classical Studies, onto the Monifieth timetable.

We hope, of course, that some STALOS students will be inspired to take a classical subject at university level, but that is far from our only goal. We learned last year that the programme was equally influential for pupils in terms of broadening cultural horizons and widening access to Higher Education in general and not only humanities subjects. Several pupils were understandably attracted by the boost the programme gave to their personal statements for university entrance, but almost all expressed in their feedback that they felt an increased confidence in approaching classical culture, broadly defined, as well as a heightened interest in the ancient Greeks and Romans. We look forward to seeing some of our STALOS students making their way through Undergraduate Classics programmes in the UK over the next few years.