During the summer holidays, six of our Durrington High School Oxford Scholars had the fantastic opportunity to spend a week at the St John’s College Residential Summer School in Oxford.
The experience gave our students a unique insight into life as an Oxford University student. Throughout the week, they took part in a wide range of activities, including academic taster sessions, social activities and the chance to explore the beautiful city of Oxford. The students also had the opportunity to meet other young people from across the country and experience university life first-hand, including staying in student accommodation.
It was an inspiring and memorable experience, providing our students with a valuable insight into higher education and encouraging them to continue aiming high for their futures.
“Going to one of Oxford University’s Colleges, St John’s College, was a really fun experience! I loved every bit of it and learnt so many things about law, medicine and engineering. I would love to go again and I recommend it to all students in the Scholars program as it really was the highlight of my summer.” Fatima
“It was a very good experience, I got to try lots of different activities that I’d never done before, and got to take classes that I was interested in to give me a wider perspective. Overall, I enjoyed them and learnt new things. I also enjoyed staying on campus as I got my own room and it very much made me feel what a student there would feel like. I met other people and got close to the people I already knew. Overall a very good, fun and exciting experience.” Luke
“It was a great introduction to higher education for us. We had great taster sessions for everything and it was great. I took part in the science sessions and they were pretty fun. The activities they offered out of lesson were good too. We did punting, painting (my personal favourite), a walk around Oxford and we got ice-cream. Overall, everyone there was so nice and made the time there even better. The only thing I could think of for them to add would be more creative subjects to taste, such as graphics or something else in the art category. I very much enjoyed my time there and would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to try out some taster lessons and possibly go to Oxford in the future.” Erin
Mr Borrett, Head of Mathematics and Super Curriculum Lead, said “DHS has a strong partnership with St John’s College Oxford and has taken students for day visits in each of the past 3 years on top of delivering their “Super Curricular” sessions to our year 9 and 10 scholars’ groups. The summer schools are the next step on our journey to increase aspirations of our students, and to have six year 10s, and two year 11s get to attend is a great accomplishment. We are extremely proud of our students for taking the opportunity and pushing themselves out of their comfort zones.”