Latin

When you enter the school’s main building and approach the grand stairway, a welcome awaits you in the floor tiling: SALVE!

This is the word that the Romans would use in greeting one another and here at Chilton Cantelo it reminds visitors of two important things; firstly that this is a welcoming school and secondly that Latin, a significant foundation stone of western education, is part of our curriculum. Indeed in recent times it has been taught to successive groups of pupils with much success and, more impressive, over just four years to GCSE, rather than in five as most schools do.

I caught up with Dr Malcolm Bonnington, our Head of Classics for the past eight years, over a cup of tea and asked him about the mug in his hands with just nine letters on it: CARPE DIEM. He explained that the school motto was drawn from a line in the Odes of Horace, a prominent Roman poet, and could best be translated “Seize the Day!” “It challenges our pupils to make the best use of their talents and skills each day as nobody knows what is just round the corner.”

He went on to explain that pupils also have an option here of studying Classical Civilisation in the Middle and Upper School, and many are fascinated by the tales of Greeks and Romans - and especially by the history and archaeology of Roman Britain on which they all undertake individual research. As his teaching room is equipped with a computer for each pupil, they can also have fun with vocabulary or task-challenges to enhance their knowledge.