Students shine in Reading Competition
On Thursday 8th March, students from Years 7, 8 and 9 represented the school in the annual Cambridge and District Classical Association Junior Reading Competition, held this year at Parkside School. After arrival, everyone enjoyed the doughnuts, squash and hot chocolate before settling down to watch and participate in an afternoon of classical competition.
The first category was Greek Reading, in which competitors had to read aloud a short story in classical Greek. The judges were very impressed with our two entrants, both from Year 9, awarding second place overall to Lizzie Ford and a prize for excellence to Evie Shelley.
Next up was the Latin Reading category, in which entrants read one of the stories from the Cambridge Latin Course textbook. The Perse was represented by two readers from Year 8, both of whom gave distinguished performances: Franklin Nelson received a prize for excellence, and Pratap Singh was placed third overall.
The last category, in many ways the highlight of the competition, was the Latin Play. Each school entered a team of those in their first year of learning Latin to perform the same play – a short version of the “Judgement of Paris”, in which it is left to Paris, prince of Troy, to decide which of the three goddesses Aphrodite, Athena and Hera, is the most beautiful: his choice of Aphrodite, who promised to give Paris the love of the most beautiful woman in the world as a bribe, was the spark that led to the famous Trojan War.
The Perse entered a team of eleven Year 7 students, who have been learning Latin for only six months. They gave a very accomplished performance, particularly impressing those in the audience with their careful pronunciation of the Latin words and their imaginative actions. The team was placed third overall by the judges, but everyone agreed that they had enjoyed the experience and certainly the Classics Department was very impressed with the high standards reached by all our students.
Well done to all involved – both for the excellent performances given at the competition, and for the hard work that had gone into rehearsals over the preceding weeks.
