As the ancient schoolroom grew, running it in the Reading Classics department became increasingly difficult. We needed to be able to travel to schools rather than expecting them to bring their pupils to campus and filling the undergraduates’ precious study space with small, excited Romans. And to do that we needed not only reorganisation of the operation itself, but a new organisational structure to support it. So we were extremely grateful to receive AHRC funding for this transition: via a ‘Follow-on Funding’ grant, the AHRC supported the schoolroom from 15 May 2023 to 15 May 2024, allowing us to buy out some of Eleanor Dickey’s time and to hire Nadin Marsovszki to work as associate director.

The first step to independence was registration as a charity, which was completed on 14 August 2023 (number 1204349). Our initial trustees were Eleanor Dickey (chair), Charles Stewart, Emma Aston, Christa Gray, Marigold Norbye, and Daniela Colomo. Unfortunately the first result of becoming a charity was that HSBC, which had hosted our bank account for years, told us we had to find another bank, and then no other bank would take us because Daniela lived in Italy. Eventually Daniela had to resign as trustee so that we could get our current account with Lloyds. We miss you, Daniela!

Our project partner for the grant was Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire, who hosted us for a glorious week in August 2023 to help us learn how to operate away from Reading. We lived in their Roman villa for a week, teaching visitors both young and old and learning how to cook Roman food over a fire. It was great fun, we learned a huge amount, and the Butser staff were so kind to us that they invited us back even after Eleanor set fire to their Iron Age bread oven! We love you, Butser!

The 2023-4 academic year was a steep learning curve for us all; we learned how to deliver a terrific ancient schoolroom off campus, developed new versions of the schoolroom (Romano-British and Latin-speaking) and new activities (fables, dictation, geometrical puzzles in sand), and had great fun — but we did not learn how to make the enterprise bring in enough money to pay even part-time wages. So after the end of the grant Nadin eventually left us for actual employment. We miss you, Nadin!

In 2024-5 the director is on leave in Munich; the rest of the team is doing events without her during the first semester, and then the ancient schoolroom materials will be in Germany in the second semester.