Commendation for Arbeia Roman Fort

Brian Bishop has sent me this note – and I can support what he says. I visited the fort some years ago and was impressed. I think we may be going there as part of next year's ARLT Summer School.

I have just received a leaflet from Tyne and Wear Museums about “Arbeia Roman Fort”, South Shields. This looks well worth visiting when you are in that neck of the woods.

“Arbeia is the only Roman Fort in the UK where you can see reconstructions
of a *Gateway* with fantastic views over the site, a *Commanding Officer's
House* which has been fitted out with authentic furniture and fresco
paintings and a *Barrack Block* which shows how Roman soldiers lived.”

The very informative leaflet is available from Tyne & Wear Museums,
discovery@twmuseums.org.uk
www.twmuseums.org.uk

Yes, Latin is a hard GCSE.

Could the present trend towards higher grades and choosing easier subjects, as alleged in today's Times (below), be followed by a reaction? Universities and employers want to be able to discriminate between the most able (or the hardest workers) and the rest. Should we add to our publicity:

Yes, Latin is interesting and you will have fun learning it, but even more importantly it will mark you out as a person worth an employer's interest.

A “catastrophic” decline in entries for French and German provoked warnings that the subjects were in danger of collapse as a result of the Government’s decision to make modern languages optional after the age of 14. Entries in French fell by 14.4 per cent and in German by 13.7 per cent.

David Hart, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: “The collapse in languages is a catastrophe. The Government has to reverse its policy of allowing students to opt out of languages otherwise there will be a crisis in state school language teaching.”

The results showed that less able pupils were being entered for vocational subjects instead of GCSEs in languages and sciences. Mr Hart said that many schools were focusing on vocational qualifications to boost standings in the league tables.