Want a working class prime minister? Then teach Latin to all students – not just the privileged few

Private schools recognise there is an important purpose in teaching Latin at a young age, says Salma Shah. And state education would do well to learn from that model

Teaching Latin in state schools could help boost academic achievement in other subjects (PA)

Even though it belongs to an elite, I have never thought of Latin as an elitist subject. The first time I ever came across any Latin was on a primary school trip to the Blackburn Rovers football ground, Ewood Park. The club’s motto, which we eight-year-olds mistook for French, is “Arte et Labore” (“By Skill and Labour”), a phrase well-suited to the working-class roots to which this and all football clubs belong.

Elite or not, most of us can get through life without any need for a qualification in a long-dead language, begging the question why 49 per cent of private schools still teach it compared to 3 per cent of state schools? Do posh people need it so they can translate the words on their family crests? A good motto surely couldn’t be written in a modern European language? Or perhaps the privileged have enough money to be wasteful with education?

Private schools are in fact quite efficient. They have recognised there is an important purpose in teaching Latin at a young age. As the governor of a small church school in Westminster, I have seen the positive, real-world benefits a Latin programme can have on a school. Year 6 pupils have scored (in Key Stage Two National Assessments/Sats) above the national average every year in grammar, punctuation and spelling tests.