We are delighted to open enrolment for the Inspire Scholars Programme for Years 9, 10 & 11 to the schools from Ealing and Harrow that participated in our three-year pilot programme! The Inspire Scholars Programme for Years 9, 10 & 11 is a pioneering, sustained-contact opportunity for students aged 13-16. The programme has been collaboratively…
Category: Years 9, 10 & 11 Inspire
Years 9, 10 and 11 Programme: Class 4 Release!
We’re excited to welcome you back to the St John’s Inspire Programme for Years 9, 10 & 11 with the materials for the fourth and final class. A copy of the Class 4 Magazine PDF is downloadable from the course page. Plain-text versions of all of the articles in this month’s class, are also available for those unable…
Years 9, 10 and 11 Programme: Class 3 Release!
We’re excited to welcome you back to the St John’s Inspire Programme for Years 9, 10 & 11 with the materials for the third class. A copy of the Class 3 Magazine PDF is downloadable from the course page. Plain-text versions of all of the articles in this month’s class, are also available for those unable to access…
Years 9, 10 and 11 Programme: Class 2 Release!
We’re excited to welcome you back to the St John’s Inspire Programme for Years 9, 10 & 11 with the materials for the second class. A copy of the Class 2 Magazine PDF is downloadable from the course page. Plain-text versions of all of the articles in this month’s class, are also available for those unable to access…
2022 Spring Term Card Out Now
Our 2022 Spring Term Card term card sets out all of the exciting outreach events, opportunities and resources on offer from St John’s, as well as across the University of Oxford. The information is particularly relevant to teachers and pupils in our link regions of Brighton & Hove, East Sussex, Southampton, West Sussex, and the…
Years 9, 10 and 11 Programme: Class 1 Release!
We’re excited to launch the St John’s Inspire Programme for Years 9, 10 & 11 with the materials for the first class. A copy of the Class 1 Magazine PDF is downloadable from the course page. Plain-text versions of all of the articles in this month’s class, are also available for those unable to access the PDF. This…
The Inspire Programme for Years 9, 10 and 11, 2021-22 is now open!
St John’s College is excited to announce the Inspire Programme for Years 9, 10 and 11, 2021-22! This is an online course, run in collaboration with Oxford for South East, open to all pupils at non-selective UK state schools. The course focuses on a central theme which is approached from a variety of subject viewpoints;…
Class 4 Competition Results 2021
Well done to everyone who submitted an entry to Class 4 of the Inspire Programme for Years 10 & 11 – the final class of this year’s programme. We received some excellent entries, and selecting winners proved tricky as always! You can click on the links below to read some of the fantastic prize-winning entries for…
Competition 4.10 Results 2021
Thank you very much to those who submitted an entry to Competition 10: Greek & Roman Thinking! For this competition, we are delighted to award a Special Commendation Prize to Tia-Lana C. for an exceptional contribution. Tia-Lana submitted an extremely creative animated video entry which really impressed the judges – you can view the video below!…
Competition 4.11 Results 2021
Thank you very much to everyone who submitted an entry to Competition 11: Poetry! You can see some of the winning entries below. 1st place (Year 10): May F. May’s winning entry Circa 750 to 650, Hesiod, an ancient Greek poet, wrote poetry. He focused on humanity and its autochthony (The Oxford English Dictionary describes this…
Competition 4.12 Results 2021
hank you very much to everyone who submitted an entry to Competition 12: Leisure and Technological Change! You can see some of the winning entries below. 1st place (Year 10): Fatima I. Fatima’s winning entry Rise of the Planet of Tech. Wake up, Twitter. School, Teams. Free time, Netflix. Today’s generation is like no other for…
Class 3 Competition Results 2021
Well done to everyone who submitted an entry to Class 3 of the Inspire Programme for Years 10 & 11! We’ve been hard at work reading through all of the fantastic entries we’ve received, and are delighted to announce this month’s winners, runners-up and finalists. You can click on the links below to read some of…
Competition 3.9 Results 2021
Thank you very much to everyone who submitted an entry to Competition 9: Mathematics of Natural Selection! Given the nature of maths, it’s easy to make a minor mistake and miss out on a perfect answer; each submission was given our full consideration, and prizes have still been awarded based on the overall quality of the entries…
Competition 3.8 Results 2021
Thank you very much to everyone who submitted an entry to Competition 8: Evolution Puzzles! There’s more than one way of interpreting the questions – we gave each submission our full consideration. We’ve uploaded our example answers for you to see how we interpreted and tackled the questions. You can check out some of the winning entries below….
Competition 3.7 Results 2021
Thank you very much to everyone who submitted an entry to Competition 7: Artificial Intelligence! We really enjoyed reading all of the entries that we received. Below you can see the winners, and read some of the winning entries. 1st place (Year 10): Michelle M. Michelle’s winning entry How would an AGI system react to being…
St John’s Inspire Programme for Years 10 & 11: Class 4
It’s now time for Class 4, the final class of our Inspire Programme for Years 10 & 11: you’ll find the new class at the Year 11 webpage. For this final class of the year, we examine culture and history through the lens of evolution. We will begin by looking at how theories of evolution…
Class 2 Competition Results 2021
Well done to everyone who submitted an entry to Class 2 of the Inspire Programme for Years 10 & 11! Once again, we received lots of very high-quality entries, and our markers had a tough time choosing the winners, runners up, and finalists – so congratulations to everybody who has won a prize! You can click…
Competition 2.4 Results 2021
Thank you very much to everyone who submitted an entry to Competition 4: Language evolution! We really enjoyed reading all of the entries that we received. Below you can read some of the winning entries, as selected by Professor Carolyne Larrington, who wrote this class’s article on the evolution of language! 1st place (Year 10): Amy…
Competition 2.5 Results 2021
Thank you very much to everyone who submitted an entry to Competition 5: What even are words any more? – we received lots of really interesting and insightful pieces of writing, some of which you can see below, as selected by our team of markers! 1st place (Year 10): Jacob W. Jacob’s winning entry The American…
Competition 2.6 Results 2021
Thank you very much to everyone who submitted an entry to Competition 6: Carolingian Minuscule! We really enjoyed looking through some of the very creative responses to deciphering this very old text – here you can see some of the winning entries, as selected by the St John’s College Librarian, Dr Petra Hoffman, who wrote this…
Class 1 Competition Results 2021
Well done to everyone who submitted an entry to Class 1 of the Inspire Programme for Years 10 & 11! The quality of entries we received was extremely high – so high in fact that we ended up awarding even more prizes than we had planned! You can click on the links below to read some…
Competition 1.3 Results 2021
Thank you very much to everyone who submitted an entry to Competition 3: Evolution of flight! Here you can see some of the winning entries, as selected by our team of markers. 1st place (Year 10): Lili S Lili’s winning entry 1st place (Year 11): Melanie H. Melanie’s winning entry The evolution of birds, and their…
Competition 1.2 Results 2021
Thank you very much to everyone who submitted an entry to Competition 2: Create your own organism. We had great fun looking through the very creative inventions of our programme participants! Below you can see some of the winning entries, as selected by our team of markers. 1st place (Year 10): Amy A. & Jessica T….
Competition 1.1 Results 2021
Thank you very much to everyone who submitted an entry to Competition 1: The fossil record! Below you can read some of the winning entries, as selected by our team of markers. 1st place (Year 10): Vienna D. & Eleanor G. Vienna’s winning entry Palaeontologists estimate that only around 1% of all animals to have ever…
St John’s Inspire Programme for Years 10 & 11: Class 2
It’s now time to move on to Class 2 of our Inspire Programme for Years 10 & 11: you’ll find the new class at the Year 11 webpage. In the previous class, we learned about evolution as a driver of biological change. But other kinds of change function in quite similar ways, and today we…
St John’s Inspire Programme for Years 10 & 11: Class 1
Dear Year 10 and 11 pupils, We hope you’ve had a wonderful holiday season and New Year’s! We’re excited to welcome you back to the Year 10 and 11 Inspire Programme with the first class materials. Today we are excited to release the first class materials for our Year 10 and 11 Inspire Programme. This…
St John’s welcomes 997 pupils to the Inspire Programme for Years 10 and 11
We are very excited to welcome a total of 997 pupils from 141 non-selective state schools onto the Inspire Programme for Years 10 and 11 this year! Click here to find out more about this year’s course.
Inspire Year 10 and 11 Launch
St John’s College, as part of Oxford for South East, is excited to announce the Year 10 and 11 Inspire Programme for 2020-21!
Inspire Virtual Summer Schools in review
Following last week’s Virtual Summer Schools on the Inspire Programme, we are excited to announce the winners of last week’s Year 9 and Year 12 competitions!
UK Parliament for Year 11: Day 2
Today, you’ll be able to put your learning to the test with some interactive online games put together by the UK Parliament outreach team!
Biodiversity and Conservation for Year 11, Day 2
In this session you will consider biodiversity, and the impact of human activities on endangered species.
Final competition results
Congratulations to the winners of this year’s final Year 11 Inspire competition!
Medieval journeys
What drove people in Medieval times to journey from their homes? During this lecture you will see examples of the travel people undertook for a variety of reasons.
Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution
Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution: During this lecture, you will examine evidence that supports this statement.
Ashmolean Museum
Welcome to our virtual tour of Oxford’s Ashmolean museum!
Pitt Rivers Museum
Welcome to the Pitt Rivers Museum! Take a virtual tour of the museum and practice your observation skills with the Museum’s collection of masks.
Plato’s Republic: Book I
During this lecture, you will consider what it meant to Plato to be a philosopher.
Disease modelling
During this lecture, you will see how two different areas of maths can be used to model the spread of diseases through a population.
Museum of Natural History
Welcome to the Museum of Natural History! Take a virtual tour and explore the museum’s highlights here.
History of Science Museum
Welcome to the History of Science Museum in Oxford! Explore the museum virtually and learn about the fascinating instruments in its collection here.
UK Parliament for Year 11: Day 1
In this session you will get to know the UK Parliament, and you will learn about some ways in which you can get involved. We will start by learning about Parliament and its history, and finish off the day with some votes and debating exercises.
Year 11 Virtual Summer School: Timetable
Welcome to the Year 11 Inspire Programme’s Virtual Summer School! Click here to get started.
Biodiversity and Conservation for Year 11, Day 1
There is a huge variety of wildlife found locally, in our gardens and local green spaces. It is important to monitor this diversity, to see whether it changes seasonally, or over time as our green spaces in Britain become more urbanised.
Inspire Year 11: Virtual Summer School and more!
We are excited to announce a virtual Summer School to take place this year for our Year 11 Inspire Programme! Click here to read more about this and the final competition.
Competition 3.1 Results: Eruptions & transformations
We are truly blown away by the fantastic entries we received for this Year 11 competition! Click here to explore the winning entries.
Competition 3.2 Results: Reading the runes
St John’s French Tutor Marie Elven set our Year 11 course a tricky rune-decoding task: click here to check your work and to see how other pupils enrolled on the course puzzled it out!
Competition 2.3 Results: Make your own volcano
The final competition in Class 2 of our Year 11 course was for course participants to make their own volcanoes, and make a film of the eruption.
Competition 2.2 Results: What’s the price on your head?
St John’s Economics tutor Dr Kate Doornik set our Year 11 course one of the more challenging competitions this year. Through Dr Doornik’s article What’s the price on your head?, pupils explored the difficulty of putting a monetary value on saving lives, and in their competition responses, pupils grappled with this challenge themselves. This series…
Competition 2.4 Results: Scaling Analysis
St John’s College Maths tutor Prof Stuart White set our Year 11 course a few challenging questions on scaling analysis as part of Class 2. Click here to see the answers!
Competition 2.1 Results
We received so many excellent entries for Competition 2.1: Volcanoes & mass extinction! This question asked pupils enrolled on our Year 11 course to think about the similarities and differences between the current mass extinction event we are living through and previous mass extinctions through history, especially considering the effect of volcanic activity. The essays…