When Seth Bolderow, head of classics at King Edward’s school and local Frome resident, decided to create podcasts, it was to help his pupils to learn their vocabulary.
He was surprised to find that not only were his students enjoying the podcasts, but he had an audience from around the world downloading them as well. Since his podcasts started at the beginning of February there have been over 200 downloads from all over the UK, Europe and the United States.
Seth Bolderow commented, “It started as a way of helping the younger pupils to learn their vocabulary. It has since expanded to help the older pupils learn their set texts for GCSE and A Level. I knew that our pupils found the podcasts useful, what surprised me was the number of people downloading them from around the world. We now have listeners not only in the UK, but in places as far afield as Oslo and Los Angeles.
Seth believes the success of the podcasts is down to the portable audio format which is so easy for pupils to use as they travel to and from school. He said, “The podcasts allow pupils to take their Latin and Greek vocabulary with them wherever they go on their MP3 players; anytime, anyplace, anywhere.”
The popularity of the pod cast downloads has encouraged the Classics department to add a link from the school website, www.kesbath.com and on iTunes, so that other pupils studying the Classics can use them too. Seth has already planned the next generation of podcasts which will include recordings from the pupils themselves.
