H.E., the Greek Ambassador Konstantinos Bikas
Burntwood’s Ambassadors for Ancient Greek – ten lucky students visit Athens to be briefed for their new role!
Burntwood School in Wandsworth has a long-standing tradition of offering Latin and Classical Civilisation to its students. With the help of a grant from the charity Classics for All Ancient Greek has also recently been introduced at the School.
The subject is attracting ever increasing numbers of students from Years 7 to 13, eager to find out more about the rich linguistic and cultural legacy of the Ancient Greeks.
The Greek Ambassador in London, Mr Konstantinos Bikas, was delighted to hear that Burntwood students are studying Ancient Greek and approached school to find out if the students would take on the role of ambassadors for the subject and visit schools, both local and further afield, to tell other students why studying Ancient Greek is so worthwhile.
To enable students to become more familiar with their brief, the Ambassador, together with the Greek Ministry of Tourism, arranged for ten lucky Burntwood students to visit Athens during half term as guests of Greece. The trip (26 – 28 May) included a guided tour of the Acropolis and the Acropolis Museum, visits to the Ancient Agora and the Cycladic Museum and a meeting at the British Embassy in Athens with British Ambassador, Mr John Kittmer, to talk about their plans to promote Ancient Greek to students in the UK.
The trip was a truly amazing experience and the young Ambassadors are now hard at work on a film in which they explain that learning Ancient Greek is both great fun and incredibly useful, as studying the language and civilisation of Ancient Greece helps us to understand how we live now.
The Greek Ambassador and his team will visit the school on 18 June to view the film and discuss further plans.
