Classics

Classics – the study of the languages, literature, history and culture of ancient Greece and Rome – continues to thrive at Charterhouse, where it has a rich and distinguished tradition of scholarship. 

The department boasts an experienced and diverse team of specialists in classical literature, social anthropology, art, architecture and history, some of whom have taught Classics at university level. Results are consistently excellent at all levels and Oxbridge numbers are good.

The School has a proud tradition of Classical scholarship. Amongst our alumni are Sophoclean scholar Richard Jebb, lexicographer Henry Liddell, and novelist Robert Graves; former Housemasters include TE Page and GS Davies. We are fortunate to have a remarkable collection of antiquities in our archive, including a wide range of pottery in some cases over 3000 years old.

Charterhouse remains one of the few schools to offer an entrance scholarship in Classics – the Benn Scholarship, named after two Carthusians who lost their lives in WWI. All Year 9 pupils study Latin, and uptake to GCSE is around 50 pupils. At GCSE and A Level pupils have the option to take Latin, Ancient Greek and Classical Civilisation. Classics is considered by employers an enviable grounding for law, financial services, marketing and computing.

For full details of the curriculum, please use the link below.

Curriculum

Beyond the Classroom

We have a rich co-curricular programme that includes trips, conferences, debates and competitions. The Classics Society meets every week with talks from pupils, teachers and external speakers (often from Oxford and Cambridge); these are sometimes paired with other societies. We host a conference for schools each year to enable pupils at Charterhouse and beyond to hear world-class lectures from academics on classical literature, and regularly run prep school taster days in Classical Greek. Each year pupils take part in classical reading and recitation competitions and devise performances from Greek theatre for the annual Art Festival, Artifex.  There is also an annual trip to either Italy or Greece.