This is from the Hexham Courant:

PUPILS KNOW THEIR CLASSICS

Published on Friday, December 3rd 2004

By Kay Cooper

PUPILS from Hexham’s Queen Elizabeth High School carried off a clutch of prizes in the annual two-county Classical Association Recitation contest.

Nearly 100 youngsters from all over Northumberland and Durham displayed their skills at declaiming the words of great classical writers like Virgil and Cicero, and English translations of Greek playwrights such as Euripides.

With the Hollywood blockbuster Troy not long out of the cinemas, the teenagers had plenty of inspiration to select passages with the theme – Helen of Troy.

Year 12 student Charles Ogilvie won the Senior Latin Recitation with a narration from the Aeneid and Cicero’s Second Philippic.

Robert Earnshaw and Catherine Metcalfe won the Classics in Translation competition for the second year running with their scene from the Greek tragedy Helen.

Ruth Keenan and Lily Jones came second, just pipping Haydon Bridge High School team Graeme Hutton and Heather Pringle.

Also in the Queen Elizabeth High School classics squad were Amy Akino, Henry Collingham, Tom Keys, Lucy Swinton, Georgina Gettings, Robert Brockway, and Bridie Chomse. Pupils Lucy Davidson and Daniel Woodhouse submitted artwork.

The competition was judged by professors and senior lecturers from the classics departments at Newcastle and Durham Universities.