Access Update: Summer 2024
Greetings from the Access Team, we hope you’ve enjoyed the summer and are looking forward to the coming term! The team has been incredibly busy over Trinity term and the summer, and we have a lot to share with you.
Across our various programmes, we welcomed 846 students from a range of our linked schools for visits to the College or Trinity Term and the summer vacation. These visits focused around explaining Oxford to the students, combined with an academic session either in college or with one of our GLAM partners. In addition to these students we’ve also welcomed 84 Primary School students from local primary schools.
On the 13th and 14th June we hosted the Primary Science Festival, in conjunction with Trinity College and the MPLS Division. The two days were a great success, with over 150 students experiencing a variety of science-based activities including: examining bugs through microscopes; designing a way to keep an egg safe when dropped from a balcony; and creating rockets from film canisters.
Meanwhile our Study Days offered Year 12s from across the country to visit St John’s to get a taste of life at Oxford studying their subject. In Trinity Term we ran in-person Study Days for History, Chemistry and Modern Languages, and an online Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. Overall 337 students attended Study Days in Trinity Term. These days always receive glowing feedback from students about how helpful they are. We hope to offer an even wider array of subjects this coming year. As part of our Inspire Y12 programme, students are invited to submit a Research Proposal. 40 of those that submitted a successful proposal came on a Research Skills Day in the college in Trinity Term. They were supported by graduate students who delivered sessions on both Research and Writing skills, and also had a tour of the college and Blackwells Bookshop.
In July and August, the Access Office hosted four Inspire Summer Schools within college. Two of these summer schools were run for pupils on the Inspire Scholars Programme, one for pupils on the Inspire Critical Thinking programme and one for pupils on the Inspire Y12 programme. These annual summer schools hosted a combined 325 students this year; the largest amount the college has seen.
The young scholars had a taste of university life, participating in a range of activities. Their evenings were occupied with BBQs, garden games, punting and formals, but it was the academic content during the day that was the main focus of the summer school. The Inspire programme utilised the talents of staff and students across the university and beyond to create unique programmes for each of our summer schools. Pupils visited Wytham Woods and museums for bespoke sessions; had tutorials with our student ambassadors and guidance on how to Find Your Voice; explored the human body in VR and created Battle Bots, to mention just a few of the activities on offer. We’re always looking for exciting new workshops to run on our summer schools, so do get in touch if you have any suggestions.
We’d like to say thank you to everyone who was involved in the running of the summer schools, including everyone in the Housekeeping, Catering and Events teams. We’d also like to thank those who ran sessions for us, including: Cristian Dobranszki and Jamie Darling from First Light Fusion; Joseph Birks from Mindsets; Scott Atkinson from Royal Academy of Engineering; Benjamin Wood; the Medicine, Materials Science and GLAM departments; Dr Kim Polgreen (Wytham); Prof Robert Hoye and his team of students; and last but not least, Stephen Barber and David Pearl.
We’d also like to say a huge thank you to our Student Ambassadors, without whom the Summer Schools couldn’t run, and who add so much to all our events in college (including school visits, open days’ work with the Primary Schools, and Study Days). We are always looking for new ambassadors and will be hosting recruitment events and advertising rewarding paid opportunities for the coming academic year. Look out for the posters and QR codes around College to sign up, or email us directly at access@sjc.ox.ac.uk.
For those who were unable to attend the in-person Inspire Summer Schools, St John’s College held an online Virtual Summer School. This was revamped this year by two of our student interns; Laurence Raran and Lily Middleton-Mansell. Over the course of a week, pupils were given access to academic activities, virtual museum tours, and career interviews with various specialists. They also had the opportunity to submit to poster and essay competitions with prizes, with several winners from each age category.
Over the past year we’ve welcomed new members to the Access Team. We’d like to take this space to welcome Sam Ponting (Digital Engagement Officer), Jenna Ilett (Digital Platform Development Manager), Megan Bruton (Access Officer) and Dr Johannah Latchem (temporary Project Support Officer). The team has hit the ground running with Michaelmas term, already having greeted over Primary School students for a Literacy Day in the college library, and run numerous school visits. Applications for our Inspire 12&13 and Critical Thinking programmes have also just launched. If you would like to talk to us more about the work we do, please do get in contact at access@sjc.ox.ac.uk.
For greater information on all of our work this past year, you can view our Year in Access brochure here.