Welcome to the online home for the Pre-GCSE Inspire Programme!

Oxford Day-Trips

Every current Year 11 on the programme is eligible to attend a day-trip to St John’s College, completely free-of-charge, in July after your GCSEs have finished: having had to cancel trips in both 2020 and 2021 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, we’re delighted to finally be able to welcome you to Oxford at long last!

Trips will be taking place throughout the first two weeks of July 2022, and every school has been allocated a date. Please speak to your Inspire Coordinator for your school’s allocated date, and for more details about the timetable and practical arrangements.

In order to attend the Oxford trip, you are required to complete a short online form, which should take you no more than a minute or two to complete. This form includes important information about your dietary and accessibility requirements, and optional photography permissions: there will be a photographer present on the day, and we will also be running a competition for the best pictures taken; you will be welcome to submit your own too!

In addition, the form also includes some additional information which we would like to request of participants:

• Permissions for data which we would like to request from you for the evaluation of the programme (optional)
• Email contact details to enable us to contact you about activities after you have finished Year 11, such as the upcoming virtual summer school and our Year 12 & 13 programmes next year (optional)

Completing this form is compulsory: please ensure you do so as early as possible, otherwise you will not be able to come on the trip!

Please note, this is separate from any permission forms which your school may require you and/or your parents to complete in order to come on the trip.

Summer School

For the first time since 2019, St John’s will be hosting in-person, residential Summer Schools this year! Two Year 11s from each participating school on the Pre-GCSE Programme will be able to join us for a three-day, two-night residential from Wednesday 27^th – Friday 29^th July 2022; please speak to your school’s Inspire Coordinator for more information about selection.

For those who are not attending in-person, our virtual Summer School will be running right here on Inspire Digital as normal, from Monday 1^st – Friday 5^th August 2022, for all participants. We will contact you about this by email, so please make sure you’ve submitted your email contact details to us using the form above, so that we can send you details closer to the time!

Further Resources

Although Inspire Clubs will be coming to an end after Easter to allow you to focus on your GCSEs, there’s plenty of resources and materials available online to help you prepare as you go into Year 12 and beyond!

• As you finish your GCSEs and think about your next steps, you may want to check out our dedicated Careers Inspiration Hub to help you think about what, featuring specially-recorded interviews and resources with former St John’s students who have gone into a wide range of careers, from medicine to the media. You may even recognise a famous face or two!
• We have a huge amount of super-curricular resources for you to check out on Inspire Digital, and on the University of Oxford’s Digital Resource Hub.
• If you’re interested in applying to Oxford University, you can also find out more about Oxford, including Information, Advice and Guidance about the admissions process and interviews, on Inspire Digital and at the main university website.

What Next?

If you’re progressing on to Year 12 in a state school in Ealing or Harrow (whether or not you stay in the same school you did your GCSEs in), you will be eligible to join our Year 12 Inspire Programme – make sure you’ve sent us your email using the form above so that we can send you the details of how to sign up next year! You can read more about our Year 12 & 13 programme here.

Past Content

Spring 2021 Video Sessions

Over the next few weeks, we will be bringing you some brand new video classes specially prepared by the Inspire Programme, looking at some of the themes and topics that you are likely to encounter in your GCSEs, to help you with your studies as you return to school.

In addition to these subject-focused classes, we have also partnered with an organisation called Positively Mad, to bring you a number of self-guided sessions on study skills and wellbeing, to help you manage your learning and your mental health, particularly in this time of ongoing disruption.

All of these sessions come in the form of videos which you can watch at home in your own time, alongside downloadable information packs, competitions and exercises.

You can access each of the sessions when they are released by clicking on the links below. Please note, you will need a password to access the ‘Positively Mad’ sessions, which you will receive from your Inspire Teacher Coordinator. Alternatively, you can email inspire@sjc.ox.ac.uk if your teacher is unable to help.

Spring 2021 Classes

Wednesday 17^th March 2021

• English: Why poems are like spells: Magic, Macbeth, and Rhyme
• Positively Mad session: Resilient (password required – see above)

Tuesday 30^th March 2021

• Maths: Mathematical Modelling in Sport: How to take the perfect penalty kick
• Positively Mad session: Motivate (password required – see above)

Wednesday 21^st April 2021

• Maths: Mathematical Modelling in Sport: Maths and the Marathon
• Positively Mad session: Study (password required – see above)

Competitions

We encourage you to participate in as many competitions as you can, but they are not compulsory. To enter a competition:

• Complete your competition entry and make sure it follows the guidelines listed for that competition
• Fill out the competition cover sheet
• Email your entry and your cover sheet to us at inspire@sjc.ox.ac.uk

The top entries to each competition will receive prizes in the form of Amazon vouchers and will be featured on Inspire Digital!

Spring Term 2021

Class 6: Books, Literature and Leisure (PDF)

Release date: 20 January 2021
Competition deadline: 3 February 2021

• Competition 11: Carolingian minuscule (PDF)
• Competition 12: Leisure and technological change (PDF)

Class 7: Adaptation and the Human Mind (PDF)

Release date: 3 February 2021
Competition deadline: 24 February 2021

• Competition 13: Evolution of flight (PDF)
• Competition 14: Is a robot a person? (PDF)

Autumn Term 2020

Class 1: Volcanoes in the Sciences (PDF)

Class 2: Volcanic Documents and Depictions (PDF)

Class 3: Evolution in science and technology (PDF)

Class 4: Evolution in culture (PDF)

Class 5: Evolution and volcanoes in review (PDF)

Virtual Summer School

Monday 3 August – Friday 7 August 2020

Spring – Summer Term 2020

Class 1: Computer Science (PDF)

Class 2: English & History (PDF)

Class 3: Medicine & Psychology (PDF)

Class 4: Language & Linguistics (PDF)

Class 5: Maths (PDF)

Class 6: Economics & Law (PDF)

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