Top results for Latin students who shared their love of Classics with aspiring Year 7 pupils

Our GCSE Latin students were celebrating last week as they collected straight Grade 9s. Between them, Imogen Graus, Lily Ward, Anavi Hosaangaadi and Isabella Round picked up a total of 36 GCSEs at grade 9, in a variety of subjects, but what brought the group together was their shared love of Latin.

Sheffield Girls’ enjoys a partnership with Sheffield Springs Academy that sees the two schools collaborate on programmes for the benefit of some of their brightest students. One of this year’s projects provided the opportunity for our students in Year 11 to contribute to Springs’ Gifted And Talented programme called Nebula, providing Classics workshops for some of their Year 7 pupils.

The workshops took place after school during the spring term, with pupils from Springs Academy joining our Latin GCSE students for both Google Meet and face-to-face sessions, to learn about Greek mythology, examine artefacts from the classical world, and explore the Latin etymology of some of our more common words and phrases in the English language.

Reflecting on the opportunity to be involved in the programme, and the incredible GCSE result in Latin and her other subjects Imogen Graus said: “I’m passionate about languages, especially Spanish and having the opportunity to share this with younger children was fantastic. I think it’s often a problem that younger kids don’t understand the relevance of Latin today, or it’s influence on modern languages but the group that we worked with were really engaged and enjoyed the sessions. I’m really looking forward to being involved in more collaborative programmes like this with other schools, now I’m moving up to the Sixth Form.”

Our Latin Department achieved 92% grades 8-9 in this year’s GCSE results despite the obvious challenges of the last two years for their students and staff alike. Head Nina Gunson said, “ I am so pleased that the classical languages continue to be as popular and successful as they are at Sheffield Girls’. Our students enjoy studying both Latin and Ancient Greek at GCSE and Latin and Classical Civilisations at A Level, and the outstanding results they achieve reflect their interest and enthusiasm for these subjects, as well as their hard work and commitment. They are all such wonderful ambassadors for the subject and I am so impressed by their genuine love of learning.”

Staff and pupils at Sheffield Girls’ have been celebrating our GCSE results after achieving amongst the highest grades in the North of England. 80% of all GCSEs were awarded at grades 7-9, with 44% of all results at grade 9.