This website hosts materials produced by the University of Cambridge School Classics Project to support teachers to bring the richness of classic tales to life in the classroom. The resources have been produced in collaboration with two of Britain’s leading professional storytellers, Daniel Morden and Hugh Lupton, and a significant portion of the early work on War With Troy was funded by the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation. Hugh and Daniel have retold and recorded Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, for a modern audience. The recordings, available for free via this site with accompanying teachers notes, bring to life familiar tales - although they are between two and three thousand years old, the stories are still very much embedded in everyday language and popular culture. People who don’t know the original tales may still speak of a “Trojan Horse,” boast of a “Midas Touch” or worry about an “Achilles Heel.”
Tried and tested in primary and secondary schools around the country, the resources are designed to be easily adaptable for different levels. For each story there are support materials including:
- one or more audio files
- teachers’ notes
- images for use in the classroom
- transcripts
Storytelling is one of the most important, most humane, most liberating and most democratic things that human beings can do, and it should have a central place in every classroom.
- Philip Pullman
(Below) The storytellers, Hugh Lupton and Daniel Morden (left and right respectively).
