• Take a look at ...

    • Benslow Music

      Benslow Music

      Residential and day courses for non-professional musicians - whether your taste is for Classical, jazz, popular, world or gospel, Benslow Music has a music course to suit you.

      Read more ...

  • Promoting residential lifelong learning in the UK since 1983

    ARCA - short residential courses in the UK

Archive of England | LeisureCourses.net - short courses & residential study breaks in great locations - Part 26

  • How do fossils record evolution? An exploration of the nature of the fossil record (online)

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    This course addresses the question of how fossils record evolution through an exploration of the nature of the fossil record. From a look at the initial discovery and interpretation of fossils we will examine the emergence of their modern interpretation as the remains of once living organisms. This reveals the biased and fragmentary nature of...

    Read more ...

  • Jewish humour in the films of Mel Brooks and Woody Allen

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    You think The Producers is hilarious? Or do you think: "well, talk about bad taste!". Maybe you think that Annie Hall is Woody Allen's greatest film, or Manhattan, or Zelig, or Crimes and Misdemeanors...? Very different in their comedy personae, Woody and Mel both started their professional careers writing for Sid Caesar in the 1950s...

    Read more ...

  • Reading Classical Greek: Advanced (prose)

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    This weekend course is part of a series designed for those who want to learn Classical Greek. Over a series of weekends, Beginner students are introduced to the basic elements of grammar through reading passages adapted from ancient Greek authors. At Intermediate level, students move onto collections of passages selected from major Greek writers, and...

    Read more ...

  • Reading Classical Greek: Intermediate

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    This weekend course is part of a series designed for those who want to learn Classical Greek. Over a series of weekends, Beginner students are introduced to the basic elements of grammar through reading passages adapted from ancient Greek authors. At Intermediate level, students move onto collections of passages selected from major Greek writers, and...

    Read more ...

  • Reading Classical Greek: Continuing Beginners (Students who began in September 2014 – Group D)

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    This weekend course is part of a series designed for those who want to learn Classical Greek. Over a series of weekends, Beginner students are introduced to the basic elements of grammar through reading passages adapted from ancient Greek authors. At Intermediate level, students move onto collections of passages selected from major Greek writers, and...

    Read more ...

  • Reading Classical Greek: Continuing Beginners (Students who began in September 2015 – Group E)

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    This weekend course is part of a series designed for those who want to learn Classical Greek. Over a series of weekends, Beginner students are introduced to the basic elements of grammar through reading passages adapted from ancient Greek authors. At Intermediate level, students move onto collections of passages selected from major Greek writers, and...

    Read more ...

  • The pollinators: painting European butterflies

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    In this course you will learn to draw and prepare a pencil drawing of a European butterfly, recording carefully the anatomical structure and pattern of the wings and then going on to complete a watercolour illustration. Practical work will be supplemented with an illustrated talk looking at the work of the great insect and butterfly...

    Read more ...

  • The Grand Tour

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    The Grand Tour was an artistic and cultural phenomenon of the 18th century. This course analyses its effect upon portraiture, landscape, architecture and the art of collecting. We will also focus on the significance of Italian culture to the Englishman abroad and the impact of his patronage upon artistic development in both Italy and England.

    Read more ...

  • Intermediate Spanish: Barcelona, cultural capital

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    This course provides an opportunity for total immersion in the Spanish language and Hispanic culture as well as plenty of speaking practice in a sound and supportive environment. It offers a mixture of language and culture - learning through topics such as Spanish and Latin American art, cinema, cuisine, fiestas, history, literature, etc. - thus...

    Read more ...

  • A history of special education in England

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    Idiot, defective, educationally sub-normal, handicapped – the labels put on children with special needs have changed over the last 150 years, but is it really a story of progress? You can judge for yourself as you explore behind the walls of the forgotten schools to which these forgotten children were consigned.

    Read more ...

  • Women of the Italian Renaissance: who were they?

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    Have you ever seen a 'desco da parto' (birth tray)? What is it and what was it used for? And why is goddess Flora so often shown in paintings with a bare breast? For what special occasions were these things commissioned? All these objects are linked to the female sphere of Renaissance women. Through this...

    Read more ...

  • Reading Classical Greek: Advanced (verse)

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    This weekend course is part of a series designed for those who want to learn Classical Greek. Over a series of weekends, Beginner students are introduced to the basic elements of grammar through reading passages adapted from ancient Greek authors. At Intermediate level, students move onto collections of passages selected from major Greek writers, and...

    Read more ...

  • Beginners’ Portuguese (Brazilian)

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    A course to lay the foundations or develop existing language skills. The main focus will be on speaking, listening and reading the relevant language at the appropriate level. Authentic materials will be used as far as possible to ensure that language use is embedded in its cultural context. Learners will be provided with grammatical building...

    Read more ...

  • Everyday ethics

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    Do animals have moral standing? How ought we treat the environment? What ethics do we need in a consumer society? This course offers an introduction to the basic positions in normative ethics, namely virtue ethics, deontology and utilitarianism, and then looks at some ethical issues of pressing contemporary concern. It is a stimulating introduction to...

    Read more ...

  • IT to computer science: teaching in transition

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    A weekend course for current teachers of IT to assist in transitioning to teaching Computer Science. This is an intensive course which is designed to help IT teachers make the leap into teaching Computer Science at GCSE and first year A-Level. A basic standard of mathematics will be required and some preparatory work will be...

    Read more ...

  • The American musical: Broadway to Hollywood

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    Come and explore the history, development and genre of the American musical, from the iconic Showboat, to the Broadway and Hollywood smash hit film musicals by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe, George and Ira Gershwin, Kander and Ebb, and Sondheim, through DVD and CD recordings, group and solo singing if desired.

    Read more ...

  • Strong-minded women: the 19th-century women’s rights movement

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    This weekend meet some strong-minded Victorian women to discover how their life's work, in a variety of spheres, changed public attitudes towards women and their role in society, influenced government policy and paved the way for winning the vote. Using biographical material and discussion groups we shall investigate how the women's rights movement worked alongside...

    Read more ...

  • The poetry of D H Lawrence

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    Best known for his ground-breaking novels, D H Lawrence was also a remarkable poet, sharply observant and possessed of a highly individual poetic voice. This course will examine a selection of his poems, relating them to the wider context of his life and times.

    Read more ...

  • Flash fiction

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    Flash fiction is the art of the very short story and is a great place for beginners to start and old hands to refine their skills. These sessions expose students to a range of styles, subjects and approaches and aim to build both confidence and expertise through writing short complete pieces of fiction. Challenging and...

    Read more ...

  • Writing with confidence

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    This short series of stimulating workshops aims to take the isolation and frustration out of creative writing, and inject enthusiasm and confidence in their place. The basic nuts and bolts of good fiction will be scrutinised, with attention to constructing a satisfying plot, writing believable characters, developing a narrative voice, creating effective dialogue, building atmosphere,...

    Read more ...

  • The Cambridge Five and the Soviet espionage offensive against Great Britain

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    Five of the most successful spies in history, the Cambridge Five, generate both interest and controversy. The Soviet intelligence offensive against Britain, however, was much greater. This course examines why, how and where Soviet espionage took place and looks at the true nature of Soviet espionage in Britain which operated across all classes and posed...

    Read more ...

  • Che Guevara

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    Ernesto 'Che' Guevara became a mythical figure during his lifetime. This course examines his career from the famous motorcycle journeys via his role in the Cuban Revolution to his death in Bolivia in 1967. It also explores his writings on revolution and guerrilla warfare and his influence on a generation of young Latin American revolutionaries...

    Read more ...

  • Poetry masterclass: the play of memory

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    It is fascinating to follow the play of memory across the rich body of work that Richard Wilbur, a poet who can fairly be called a modern master, has built up over 75 years. In shadowing him we may well find our own memories taking us by surprise.

    Read more ...

  • Research at the museums

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    Taking a behind-the-scenes tour of a different Cambridge museum each week, this course will explore how the collections housed across Cambridge are still being used in cutting-edge research. We will see that, far from being a record of past discoveries, Cambridge collections are still leading to surprising discoveries about the past, as well as helping...

    Read more ...

  • The exotic Universe

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    From exploding stars to dark matter, join us for a non-mathematical exploration of some of the strangest places in the Universe. Each session will introduce a type of astronomical object (e.g. pulsars, quasars, supernovae), then we will investigate its extreme behaviour and explore how it fits into our understanding of the lives of stars and...

    Read more ...

  • Early Christian ethics: slavery, sex and salvation

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    Did the early Christians present an ethical challenge to the society of their day or leave it unchanged? Did they practise equality or provide a religious justification for patriarchy and slavery? Did they really turn the other cheek and share their possessions? What did their non-Christian contemporaries make of their behaviour? An introduction to current...

    Read more ...

  • Writing non-fiction: bringing the past to life

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    The past might be your grandfather's experience of the Great War, the secret life of your house or your parents' early years as newcomers to post-war Britain. Whether you're just starting out or have already begun writing, this weekly course will help you to think more deeply about the past and the most compelling way...

    Read more ...

  • Rocks, minerals and fossils: an introduction to geology

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    This wide-ranging, practical introduction to geology, with a field trip, is an opportunity to study many different rocks, minerals and fossils. We will also see the part played by volcanoes and earthquakes, mountains and oceans in the making of Britain on its long journey from south of the equator to its present position.

    Read more ...

  • The glory of Rome

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    Few nations left such a lasting legacy on our world as the Roman Empire. In this course we will analyse the legacy of Rome through its politics, laws, religions, military, engineering, and art and architecture. What are the crucial achievements of the Romans? How did the Romans innovate and which elements of the Roman world...

    Read more ...

  • The golden age of Elizabethan music and culture

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    The Elizabethan period was a true 'golden age' in music, where great composers like Tallis, Byrd, Gibbons and Dowland worked in a cultural environment that cherished their talents. They were surrounded by a host of other excellent musicians, and together created works for voices, viols, lutes and keyboard that are still heard and appreciated today.

    Read more ...