Classical Civilisation GCSE

On this page

• Classical Civilisation GCSE Summary
• Classical Civilisation GCSE Textbook
• How we approached Classical Civilisation GCSE
• How we spread the content
• If we had our time again…
• Other learning resources
• Other resources

Peggy chose this as her first GCSE which she sat in May 2024, just a few days after her 12th birthday. She absolutely LOVED this subject and is now going on to do Ancient History GCSE!

Classical Civilisation GCSE Textbook

• OCR Classical Civilisation GCSE Route 1: Myth and Religion

As textbooks go, it’s very readable with plenty of pictures to break up the text. It lends itself to self-studying this GCSE very well.

The publisher of the textbook also has an accompanying website which has a huge number of resources broken down into the corresponding chapters in the textbook. This really is a fabulous resource. There are links to places to visit, to podcasts you can listen to and there are quizzes to complete too.

If you register as a teacher, you have further access to teacher-only resources but at the moment (as at August 2023) there are just notes on the prescribed literary sources which are definitely worth a look; we used them.

I had no problems at all registering as a teacher. The home page explains what to do when you’re not affiliated to a school and I was registered within a day.

How we approached Classical Civilisation GCSE

We started off using the pre-recorded course by Humanatees but moved to self-study. This was because of a combination of going on to choose a different topic for paper 2 (totally on us!) and no replies or feedback to submitted assessments for paper 1; we received no contact at all after signing up and paying for the course. The exam technique resources we were given access to as part of the course were already freely available on the Classical Civilisation Facebook group. Basically, we’d paid £120 for content videos and that was it. We were totally on our own so I wish we’d just self-studied right from the beginning and spent the money on some exciting trips instead. Peggy, though, is keen to watch the videos from the paper 2 topic she didn’t do so we’ll get some of our money’s worth at least!

I’ll write up more about our approach once I’ve completed planning for 2024/25. We learned so much from doing this GCSE and so I’ve got a lot to share!

If we had our time again…

We’d change so many things! I’ll write this up shortly…

Other learning resources

Facebook Group

Pretty much every GCSE subject has a home ed page on Facebook and Classical Civilisation is no exception. Here is the link to the group.

There are absolutely loads of files in the Guides section, all broken down into units from the syllabus. There’s plenty of exam technique support and also links to videos, books and other related resources. It’s definitely worth having a look on there before starting each topic.

The Classics Library

I found this late on and I wish I’d gone for using it from the beginning! There are so many free resources on this website which are shared by teachers in schools. There are great revision booklets and mock exams. Unfortunately there are rarely answers to any of the resources as you’re expected to be a teacher who knows the answers! But in most cases I could work them out because I was learning alongside Peggy.

You have to register to gain access to this website but I got this within a few hours.

Classics Homeschool

This website is solely for home educators and so you have to register to join the hub – website is here. Once approved, you have access to lots of resources and you’re able to post questions for advice and can read other peoples’ posts too. Whilst the resources are great (we’re using several) they come in all manner of formats; there’s Word 97 files, Publisher files, jpegs and Flipchart files (I had to download specific software to read these).

Exam technique guide

I came across this guide on the Facebook group. It’s written by Chi-ann, a Classical Civilisation tutor, of The HomeEd Study Room. This was a fantastic resource and really supported us with exam technique. It was worth every penny!

Other resources

I created quite a few resources to help Peggy, especially on Roman City Life. I’ll share these on here shortly in case they can be of use to others too.