Relic of the past: State school resurgence is breathing new life into Classical Studies
Classical Studies had fallen out of favour - but a state school resurgence is breathing new life into ancient studies
For decades it was seen as the preserve of private schools.
But a resurgence in Classics has boosted exam presentations to their highest level in 40 years - in a rise driven by the state sector.
With no Scottish university offering a teaching qualification in Classics, however, the impetus is coming from individual teachers with a passion for the subject.
Emma Noble, a principal History teacher, has championed a drive to bring the discipline to her Coatbridge school.
Mrs Noble saw her husband, an actor, perform in the National Theatre of Scotland’s modern take on the Greek tragedy Medea.
She was mesmerised.
“It absolutely blew me away,” she said, “And I thought, ‘Where has this been all my life?’”
Mrs Noble then began to research the subject and saw how beneficial a Classics education would be to her pupils.
With the green light from her head teacher, the St Ambrose High School introduced Classics for S1 and S2, while Mrs Noble worked to gain an extra teaching qualification.
This is now the first year students will be able to sit a National 5 qualification in the subject, with Higher Classics already on offer.
As well as support from the educational charity Classics For All, other schools in the private and state sectors were invaluable.
Mrs Noble said a “brilliant online community” of Classics teachers were generous with resources.
The Higher class is receiving support from fee-paying The Glasgow Academy and teachers from St Aloysius’ College have also given support.
Some pupils will attend Airdrie Academy, which has an established Classics programme, for classes the school’s timetable cannot accommodate.
Classics For All gave her financial support to fund her studies and she gained qualifications at the Open University.
This last was vital, given the lack of qualifications in Scotland.
“One of the problems is that if that person with passion in the school leaves then the subject is gone entirely - so I wanted to formalise it,” she said.
Mrs Noble has taught History for 25 years - with 20 of those in St Ambrose - but said an early introduction to Classics would have changed her career trajectory.
She added: “I think for the number of kids in a state school who aren't getting these opportunities, it does open up so much for them in terms of language and literacy and art and theatre.”
Classics For All was set up in 2010 in London with the purpose of increasing access to Classics.
Scotland became a focus in 2016 when schools north of the border were asked to report whether they did any kind of Classical Studies or Latin.
The response, the charity’s Dr Alex Imrie, said, “did not make for tremendously encouraging reading”.
Only 18 schools had any sort of Classics - from senior phase exams to lunch time clubs run by enthusiastic teachers - while just 11 did Latin.
Dr Imrie, Teaching Fellow in Ancient History, took up his post with the charity in 2017 tasked with growing the subject in Scottish schools.
He said: “We want to really show that Classics is a discipline that is accessible to all, and that everybody has a place in because we were only too well aware that classics carries, in some quarters, a lot of kind of historic baggage with it.
“We are starting to see some success and some fruit from our strategies.”
One big roadblock to Classics in state education in Scotland is that there is no single provider of a PGDE programme in Latin or Classical Studies.
“We are a real rarity in that respect,” Dr Imrie added, “It’s created a vicious cycle because we have no new teachers coming in to the discipline, which means we can’t really expand in any huge way.”
Instead, the charity works with teachers who are already in schools and who want to gain additional teaching qualifications.
So far six teachers, including Mrs Noble, have gone through the system taking around a year to gain all the modules needed for GTCS recognition in the subject.
Classics For All will pay for 50 per cent of the costs accrued.
Dr Imrie said: “The sheer scale and the rapidity of Emma’s success has been really noteworthy.
“Every pupil who goes through the door in the first three years gets a chance to do something Ancient, which is which is remarkable.”
In 2025 the presentation numbers for Classics in Scotland were the highest they have been in 40 years.
While the overall numbers are small, the rise over the five years to 2025 was 258 per cent.
That rise is common across Scotland too, and not solely confined to the Central Belt.
Dr Imrie, who found ancient history “because my parents loved Spartacus”, said: “It was quite important to me when I came into this role, that this not be a project that affected the central belt or the university cities.
“I’m from Edinburgh myself, so it would be super easy just to focus on Edinburgh, but some of my proudest achievements are managing to help teachers up in Thurso get Classical Studies onto their curricular time.
“Or a school in Aberdeenshire that went from nothing to a solid number of presentations annually.”
In Classical Studies, state schools comprise two thirds to three quarters of the annual presentations, meaning state schools are now outstripping independent schools in terms of annual presentations and classical studies.
Dr Imrie said: “It had become, to some degree, a preserve of the independent schools because it had been permitted to become so in the state sector.”
Latin has been taught in Scotland going back to the Middle Ages.
In the 1970s and 80s Latin found its squeezed out, competing for curricular space with Modern Studies and geography, and teachers “resisted any move to change or to reform or modernise the way that subject was taught”.
Around 2011, the final teacher training course in Classical Studies stopped.
Back at St Ambrose and Mrs Noble says that when the class reads extracts from the Odyssey, you could “hear a pin drop”.
“They are absolutely fascinated by the whole thing,” she added.
“It’s been a long time since I looked out at a class like that and they are just agog at what you’re saying to them.
“The kids have found their niche and I have found mine.”
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