Around 30 Students in Y8-Y11 at Cambourne Village College, Cambridgeshire, took part in a workshop with the Classics Department at Royal Holloway University of London. Dr Efi Spentzou delivered a workshop to help students gain confidence in their own voices through a reimagining of the Classical myths of Eurydice.
Miss Jess Angell, Head of History, Cambourne Village College
Miss Angell writes
This was an exciting opportunity for students to take part in an externally led workshop hosted by a prestigious university. This was also a brilliant opportunity for our school to learn more about Classics- a subject we hope to develop across the school! We can’t wait to be able to host more events like this!
Students commented on the event saying:
- ‘This workshop has showed me that there are multiple viewpoints to a story, not just one’.
- ‘This was very interesting and I would love to learn more about this topic’.
- ‘I feel quite strongly about people being given a voice, and this unfairness is something we should really learn from and use while we’re living in the now’
The workshop was based on selected characters and story lines from Ovid’s Metamorphosis and focused on the myth of Eurydice and Orpheus, as a story of muted self-expression and the strains behind young love.
The Eurydice is part of major project run by Efi and co-created with students in Classics to use the narratives of Classical myth to inspire school students and others to find their voices and tell their stories. If you want to find out more about Myth and Voice Initiative contact Efi direct.
Miss Angell (Head of History at Cambourne Village College)
We are incredibly grateful to Dr Spentzou for taking the time to deliver this workshop to our students. We enjoyed that students from Y8-Y11 were invited to take part, especially as outreach work is normally exclusively for Y12-13s. This meant that even our youngest students were able to hear from an expert, take part in the workshop, and discuss their ideas with an academic.
Based on this workshop, it is clear that there is a big appetite amongst our students to learn more about the Classical world and we hope we can develop this provision at our growing school. The outreach work from Royal Holloway University has allowed us to explore a subject that is not commonly taught at comprehensives, and with the support of work being done by this university alongside others, we hope that other comprehensive schools will have more access to Classics!
