Oxford Trip

Posted 19th Oct

Bright and early on the morning of Monday 17th a group of eager Year 11 students set out for the "Getting through your GCSEs Conference" organised by the University of Oxford.

In the historic buildings of Lady Margaret Hall, set in stunningly beautiful grounds, they joined similar groups of students from other schools from throughout the South East of England. After an introductory talk, they were split into workshops covering topics ranging from revision strategies and memory techniques, writing excellent essays, through to a focus on wellbeing.

A particularly well received session was about resilience, throughout life as well as school, delivered by a clinical psychologist. This included the memorable advice to "be more dog" (as opposed to cat), in other words to embrace the kind of wholehearted enthusiasm demonstrated by our four-legged friends.

What did they learn?

Here is what one student had to say: "There are different strategies when revising and patience is key. Other things that we have learnt on the university trip is that resilience was a key idea when revising. We have also learnt that memory is a good strategy in revising certain subjects (rather do 3 x 20 minute sessions than a full 60 minute session), and how re-reading/ redoing past papers will help you in your exams."

Having experienced a small taste of university life, our students returned with a renewed determination to make the most of the remaining months before these crucial exams.