A key priority for outreach in Modern Languages over the last year has been to work with schools in areas of the UK that are traditionally less likely to send students to Oxford. To that end, we have been expanding our regional work in a number of ways, most notably with the Oxford Language Days which we wrote about in a previous edition of the newsletter. Recent Language Days took place in the Tees Valley and Newcastle, with more planned in Somerset, Devon, and Shropshire this summer.
But as well as taking Oxford to different areas of the UK, we are also keen to bring students from across the country to Oxford, to see the university in person and experience a touch of that Oxford magic first-hand. A lot of this work is already been undertaken admirably by the colleges, who have been building relationships with schools in their link regions for years. With this is mind, we collaborated with Jesus and St Peter’s Colleges to deliver our first departmental residential in March. This differed from most Oxford residentials in two ways: first, it was entirely subject-specific, being packed full of languages-related activities; second, it was aimed at a younger age group than is typical for residentials. While most residential programmes target Year 12 students in order to give them a taster of university life, for us it was important to reach the students at an earlier stage of their education, so as to impress upon them the advantages of studying languages before they even made their GCSE choices. We therefore decided to target Year 9 students from Wales, as Wales is one of the areas where Jesus and St Peter’s Colleges concentrate their outreach efforts.
We were incredibly fortunate that this event was backed by the Seren network, which is a network of regional hubs designed to support Wales’ brightest students achieve their academic potential and access leading universities. The word ‘Seren’ means star in Welsh. We have been working regularly with Seren over the past year, alongside the University of Cardiff and Routes into Languages Cymru: this collaboration led to two language-based university information days for Year 12 students, a Year 11 languages day at Cardiff University, and this Year 9 residential. Our colleagues at these organisations kindly promoted the event through their hub structure, ensuring we were targeting the students who could most benefit from this opportunity, and worked with us to put together the programme. Seren also funded the students’ and teachers’ transport – no small matter when some were coming from as far away as Anglesey!
This mammoth collaboration culminated in a jam-packed stay at Jesus and St Peter’s, involving forty-four Year 9 students from eleven schools across Wales. Pupils had a whirlwind carousel of workshops and tours, as well as getting to experience life as an Oxford student, dining and staying in a college. Activities included an introduction to magical Italian, a visit to the Bodleian’s ‘Babel: Adventures in Translation’ exhibition, a film subtitling workshop in French or Spanish, and a poetry session in French. For some students, this was their first time away from home and, in the case of one girl, the first time she had ever been on a train, but we found the group to be incredibly enthusiastic and creative. Among the feedback we received, some of my our favourite comments included “I now have a different outlook on Oxford and have a clearer image of my future” and “save a room for me! I’m coming here when I’m older.”
This event could not have happened without the support of some of our fantastic undergraduate ambassadors. This is the first year we have run an MML ambassador scheme, and they were worth their weight in gold at the residential, as they helped demythologise Oxford and really made the pupils feel at home.
The residential opened our eyes to the effectiveness of providing these kind of immersive experiences to younger pupils as a means of combatting common misperceptions about Oxford, and of raising aspirations early. As one teacher commented: “it allowed pupils to see that studying at Oxford is not about what you look like or how much money you have, it’s about your work ethic and attitude.” The support from the colleges was crucial to making this residential work, and we hope that this experience might serve as a model for further collaborations as we seek to provide more opportunities for residential outreach with Key Stage 3. To everyone involved: diolch!