Classical Civilisation GCSE

Specification: OCR GCSE in CLASSICAL CIVILISATION (J280) first taught September 2009

Course Objectives:

The purpose of the GCSE Classical Civilisation course is to gain an understanding of some of the elements of the classical world and its literature which have had such a tremendous impact on modern day society. Our aim is to fire students' imagination and to deepen and develop their experience of a wide range of topics and texts arising from both Greece and Rome.

Course Content:

(the emphasis is on a wide variety of learning experiences)

Students will:

learn about buildings, institutions, everyday life, leisure and sporting activities in the ancient cities of Rome and Athens
read, understand and make personal responses to English translations of Greek and Roman literature
develop an awareness of the similarities and differences between the classical world and modem times
interpret and evaluate written and archaeological evidence from Greece and Rome

It is anticipated that candidates will study four of the following topics:

Unit A351 City Life in Rome
Unit A352 Homer: The Odyssey - a selection of the epic adventures of Odysseus after the fall of Troy
Unit A 353 Community Life in Pompeii
Unit A354 Sophocles: Antigone - a Greek play based on the tragic events surrounding the royal family of Thebes or
Unit A354 Virgil: The Aeneid Books 1,2,4 - the epic adventures of Aeneas in the Trojan War and his journey after the fall of Troy across the Mediterranean to Italy or
Unit A354 The Ancient Olympic Games or
Unit A354 Roman Britain

Assessment:

75% examination and 25% internally assessed controlled assessment.

Units A351, A352 and A353 are assessed by external examinations.

Unit A354 is tested by an internal, controlled assessment task.

Duration and weighting of exams:

Each examination in Units A351, A352 and A353 is 1 hour long and each examination is worth 25%.

The controlled ssessment task takes place during a number of supervised sessions and is worth 25%.

Examination preparation:

All students are issued with detailed departmental revision documents. Copies of these documents are available on the pupils` area of the school website and the school intranet. Topic content lists are available on the OCR website

http://www.ocr.org.uk/qualifications/gcsefor2009/classicalcivilisation/index.html

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