Top marks for the Faculty of Classics

The Faculty of Classics has received full marks in its recent Subject Review by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA), scoring a remarkable 24 marks out of 24.

Professor Malcolm Schofield co-ordinated the Faculty's preparation for the review.

"This excellent result was only made possible by the co-operation and dedication of all those teaching classics in Cambridge as well as the efforts of our committed support staff and of course the students themselves, whose academic work and involvement in the life of the Faculty clearly much impressed the visiting team of assessors", he said.

"We are very pleased. We believe strongly that first-class research and first-class teaching work together to foster an atmosphere of enthusiasm at the cutting edge of the subject in which both staff and students thrive. We thought we were doing well but this external validation is a great boost to morale and we intend to build on this achievement in the coming years.

In their report to the University's Vice-Chancellor, the review team were impressed not only with the breadth, depth and coherence of the Faculty's curriculum, but also with the stimulating content of the teaching sessions and the way that supervisions helped to promote understanding and learning. They gave particular emphasis to the importance of the Faculty's democratic culture in fostering shared ownership of its educational strategy. They also praised the comprehensive academic and pastoral care, support and guidance given to Cambridge undergraduates.

QAA Subject Reviews involve evaluating the Faculty's own self-assessment, analysing statistical indicators and then a week-long on-site inspection. A team of external assessors observe teaching sessions, talk to students and employers, inspect facilities and question the institution closely. The Faculty is then graded on six aspects of provision and a report is published by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).

The University has had an outstanding record in the QAA review process since it was introduced in 1993. Both the effectiveness of the College supervision system, and the links between high quality research and teaching, have been noted repeatedly in the QAA reports on Cambridge.