A Message From David Dudeney

When I heard that I would receive a bursary and therefore be able to attend Loughborough Grammar School, I was of course very excited, but I had no idea how profoundly it would impact my life. Going to LGS gave me such a rich and diverse education that I’m still reaping the benefits of today, even with university behind me.

For me, the most notable aspect of learning at LGS was the wide array of language teaching. Throughout my time there, I was able to study French, German, Latin and Classical Greek, with extensive opportunities outside of timetabled lessons to enrich my experience. I carried on French, German and Latin to A-Level (along with History), but I was also able to continue indulging my interest in Greek, thanks to a Greek reading club run by one of the Classics teachers. It was also at LGS that I had my first encounters with linguistics, which became one of my main academic interests at university.

Aside from the fact that I wouldn’t have been able to take Latin and Greek at any other school in the area, I was also able to continue studying German in Year 13, despite being the only pupil in the cohort to take German that year. In this regard, LGS not only provided opportunities beyond what would normally be available, but also had the resources to ensure that there were no logistical reasons why I could not pursue my academic interests freely.

After finishing at LGS, I went on to study German and Russian in my Modern and Medieval Languages degree at Cambridge, where I was able to continue developing my love and understanding of various languages. This included not only German and Russian, but also some Modern Greek, medieval Slavic languages and the Indo-European linguistics paper run by LGS alumnus James Clackson, which involved Latin, Greek and Sanskrit. During my year abroad, I had even had the privilege of studying Akkadian for a semester at Heidelberg University in Germany, and while I was in Georgia for the other semester, I got to learn a bit of Georgian.

What I’m most grateful for in all of this is not specifically that I got into Cambridge, but rather the way it enhanced my academic experience there. For example, I was able to appreciate Latin and Greek influences in medieval texts, compare the differences between Ancient and Modern Greek, and take the Indo-European linguistics paper in my final year (which I wouldn’t have been able to do at all without A-Level Latin, given that my degree was mainly in German and Russian).

Although all of this is very niche, I believe that the way I have been able to pursue this interest demonstrates how beneficial my education at LGS has been, which in turn was only possible thanks to the bursary I received. Now that I have entered the world of work and my years of (full-time) education are (probably!) behind me, I look back on my time at LGS with thankfulness for the rare opportunities it has given me, both while I was there and after I had moved on.