I was really turned round by the launch of the EU-sponsored Circe project on Friday.

I freely admit that my first impression, a couple of years ago, was not all that good. I thought at that time that the project (as I saw it) of providing teaching support that would be relevant to several different countries in the European Union was going to be like dropping eye lotion on a crowd from the top of a skyscraper and hoping that one or two of the drops might find their way to sore eyes.

When we were presented with the finished article, I realised that it has a lot to offer. It's not so much a treasure chest of resources in itself; rather, it's like a guide taking us by the hand and introducing us to the various treasure chests that exist on the web and on CD rom.

Before I go further with my impressions, I'd better let you see Julian Morgan's own report on the day. He has kindly sent it to me as a pdf, which you can download by clicking here. (You need Adobe Reader, which you can download free here.)

Now for my own impressions.

Being a country cousin, I couldn't get to the IBM building on the South Bank dead on time, but hoped to hear Boris Johnson's complete talk (performance?). In fact he spoke earlier than advertised, so I got only some of his talk. His general line may be familiar from TV and newspapers, but it was good to hear him live. Our friend Wilf O'Neill was most impressed at the way Boris not only remembered and used a remark he had made in a brief conversation before the talk, but also remembered Wilf's name after hearing it only once. The remark, by the way, was about the latest EU stupidity - a blanket ban on lead which could sound the death-knell for pipe organs.

Boris was not impressed by the way exams are going. He advocated "a fierce, eschatological exam". He suggested that if we want to build up shared cultural values in Europe, we should insist that all EU children know one book of Vergil's Aeneid; his own preference would be Book IV.

Just before lunch, incidentally, Michael Fallon, M.P., who is chairman of the Westminster all-party Classics group, had 5 minutes to wish the project well. He said he counted himself lucky to be given even a third of the time given to 'the great Boris!' He said that when he was a minister in 1990 he was warned that Classics had little or no infrastructure as far as the ministry was concerned. He hoped that the Circe project would do something to remedy this. He told us, by the way, that his son was studying Latin in Tonbridge.

But before Michael Fallon we had a general introduction to and a bit of the history of the Circe project from Julian Morgan, and we heard from Veerle de Troyer from Belgium, who is the project coordinator. I asked Veerle over lunch whether the EU was providing funding for the project and particularly the website to continue, and she told me the news I feared, that this was the end as far as the EU was concerned; the good news, however, is that Veerle's own institution is going to take over the website, which was built and is at present hosted by the Greeks, and that she is determined to keep it up to date. Julian said that the site is set up so that many contributors can work on it. So I think it may grow and become even more useful as it responds to teachers' requests and needs.

Anyway, Veerle told us that a majority of secondary schools in Belgium offer Latin (plucky little Belgium!). She has been a Classics teacher herself, and when she began this project, she found the participants by simply entering into Google "Classics ICT". The EU apparently has a Socrates project, under which comes Comenius, under which again is Circe. Hope this means something to somebody. Maybe it helps to live near Brussels - something in the air may help you understand Euro-speak.

Veerle reckoned she had found a real need: many Classics teachers do not know what IT resources there are for them to use, and have never been given instruction on how best to use IT in teaching - or rather in helping pupils to learn. There is, in fact, no in-service training in IT specially for Classics teachers. (I suppose she means officially provided, because Julian runs courses.) She did emphasise that IT is an aid, and can never replace a living teacher.

So the point of the exercise is to provide training for Classics teachers, and to share good practice. This is done through the website, through the handbook (don't worry if you haven't got a handbook yet; apparently JACT is going to post it out to all the schools, and anyway the complete text of the book is included on the website). There is also going to be an annual training week for a lucky group of 40-50 European Classics teachers, the first one being in Oxford (Corpus Christi) this August.

The website includes a survey of how Classics are taught in different countries. In Italy, for instance, Latin is taught without any reference to Roman art or other 'background' topics. On the website there is an image bank, an article on fonts, sample lesson plans (they will, naturally, be lessons that include the use of IT), and coming soon, a forum. I wonder what the common European language used in the forum will be. Latin, perhaps?

I reckon this is a long enough post. I'll stop it here, and start again under another heading.