The Group is in touch with Oxford’s own programme in the area, which is led by Somerville, St Hilda’s and St John’s. We are also aware of initiatives in the same space by six local universities.
Our routine activity, however, comprises specific programmes that we arrange with individual schools, to provide regular 1to1 Mentoring sessions over about six months to selected disadvantaged pupils who will benefit. This programme has evolved over several years, and now covers about 100 Mentors in 20 schools, supporting nearly 300 pupils.
Our Mentors are not teachers, and do not replace what schools are doing already. Instead, they bring the benefit of personal experience and confidence, and above all time and individual focus, to help develop the potential of disadvantaged pupils. In this way, the pupils can for examples improve their communication skills, clarify their thoughts, recognise their own potential, and develop their abilities to conduct research, to make assessments and to take decisions. The objective is that, with our help, able pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds will make better selections of university application, and then be successful in winning the places they merit.
The pilot project for this initiative was held over several years at a local sixth form college, Barton Peveril. In that time, the number of pupils from Barton Peveril achieving places at Oxbridge/ medical school multiplied many times over. The OUS Mentoring programme was an integral part of that success, and is therefore being rolled out elsewhere.
