We are delighted to once again be hosting the St John's Inspire Programme Summer School, which will be held virtually in 2021.

St John's Inspire Programme - CMYK.jpgThe Inspire programme encourages talented pupils to aim high, to stretch themselves academically and to be confident in making well-founded applications to a top university like Oxford. The annual summer schools play a key role in this mission, so we’re thrilled to be able to host them this year on our Inspire Digital platform.

This year the programme is more ambitious than ever, featuring three strands: the Pre-GCSE programme, for pupils on our three-year sustained contact programme in Ealing and Harrow; the Year 10 & 11 Programme for pupils enrolled on our online programme from across the UK; and the post-GCSE for pupils enrolled on our Year 12 programme across Ealing, Harrow, and the Oxford for South East region.

The 2021 summer schools will be taking place 2nd–6th August on the Inspire Digital platform, with new content going live each morning for students to follow along with. The content will remain on the platform until 23rd September, so participants will be able to join whenever they are free and revisit activities they have found useful however many times they like.

CockroachesActivities include a variety of new academic talks, challenges, tasks and skills-development sessions created exclusively for the St John’s Inspire programme. Subjects range from religion in ancient Greece and realism in Victorian novels to cardiology and DNA, with all activities designed by experts in their field, including many of our fellows here at St John’s and members of the wider Oxford community. Examples include “Should insects be on the menu?” with the Natural History Museum and a session on “Investigating Portraits” with the Ashmolean. The programme is also working with a number of partner programmes, including Positively MAD, The Noisy Classroom, Causeway and Arvon, to create bespoke video sessions and extra-curricular activities for participants.

The Year 12 programme has a career focus this year, with participants able to “meet” a new person each day through the magic of video who will give an insight into their career journey. Students will be exposed to a wide range of career possibilities, from politics to mining, encouraging participants to consider their own choices and the variety of pathways open to them. All strands of the summer school will focus on developing study skills, motivation, goal-mapping and decision making to enable participants to make the most of whatever path they decide to follow.

Throughout the summer school there will be lots of opportunities for participants to share their work with us for the chance to win Amazon vouchers and have their work featured on Inspire Digital. Students will need to submit examples of their work by 31st August to be eligible for the prizes.

We can’t wait to welcome the participants to College virtually in just over two weeks’ time! For more information, please see https://sjcinspire.com/.

 Credit for cockroach image: Photo by Jesper Aggergaard on Unsplash