Democracy and Ancient Athens workshop
The British School at Athens is delighted to organize a free, virtual CPD workshop for UK-based school teachers, focusing on the theme ‘Democracy and Athens‘.
The aim of the workshop is to discuss various methods of approaching and studying primary sources, and to communicate research to teachers and professionals working in secondary education in the UK. Participants will follow a series of online presentations, introducing the main themes of the module and providing new case studies beyond the school syllabus. These presentations will be followed by a discussion among the presenters, and the audience, which will have the opportunity to ask questions.
By the end of the course, participants will have a sound working knowledge of Democracy and Ancient Athens, helping them to teach this material to students with confidence.
The workshop will take place on Tuesday 11 March 2025, at 4pm.
The programme will be announced in early January 2025.
Participation in the workshop is free. To participate, please fill in this online application.
- Information on the in-person course for teachers (not running in 2024/25)
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’
