I have just returned from a fantastic day with 26 of our Year 11 students visiting Oxford University. Fresh from completing their GCSEs and Sixth Form induction day, we headed off to the dreaming spires on a sunny Thursday, ahead of the Year 11 Ball tomorrow!

Our host for the day was the wonderful Evie from Exeter College’s Outreach team. She gave the students an introduction to Oxford, including some myth-busting, followed by a tour of Exeter College, including the beautiful chapel. This was followed by a fascinating taster session for English Literature, looking at some eighteenth-century satire. The students engaged brilliantly with the text and the session, exploring concepts such as the authorial contract, and making links with contemporary political rhetoric as well as their knowledge of Dickens and Victorian literature. Evie said it was one of the best discussions she’d ever had in response to the session!

We were ready for a delicious lunch in Exeter College’s Hall, followed by a second taster session. This time, Ben from Brasenose College gave the students an experience of the sort of things they might learn about on an Experimental Psychology course. Again, our students excelled as they engaged with the interrelation of classical conditioning and the placebo effect – even suggesting an interesting new area of research into whether the placebo effect could be used in the fight against antibiotic resistance!

The day finished with a visit to New College, the college I studied at for my undergraduate degree and which is now home to ex-Churchill student Sarah, who has just finished her first year studying Chemistry. Sarah was part of the last group of Year 11 students I took to Oxford back in 2019 – we recorded a podcast together at New College earlier in the year reflecting on the impact of that experience. As our current Year 11 students took in the New College Chapel, Cloisters and the famous tree where Draco Malfoy was turned into a ferret by Mad-Eye Moody in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, I hope some of them were similarly inspired to think about applying. Based on their performance in the taster sessions, they are more than capable of getting in!