Latin to GCSE Part 1

Book excerpt: A companion to Bloomsbury's popular two-volume Greek to GCSE, this is the first course for Latin students that directly reflects the curriculum in a clear, concise and accessible way. Enhanced by colour artwork and text features, the books support the new OCR specification for Latin (first teaching 2016) as well as meeting the needs of later students, both at university and beyond. Written by two experienced school teachers, one also an examiner, the course is based on a keen understanding of what pupils find difficult, concentrating on the essentials and on the explanation of principles in both accidence and syntax: minor irregularities are postponed and subordinated so that the need for rote learning is reduced. User-friendly, it also gives pupils a firm foundation for further study. Part 1 covers the basics and is self-contained, with its own reference section. It outlines the main declensions, a range of active tenses and a vocabulary of 275 Latin words to be learned. Pupil confidence is built up by constant consolidation of the material covered. After the preliminaries, each chapter concentrates on stories with one source or subject: the Fall of Troy, the journeys of Aeneas, the founding of Rome and the early kings, providing an excellent introduction to Roman culture alongside the language study.