Helping you to support your students
The St Hugh’s Outreach team works closely with teachers and advisors in the UK state sector to organise and run activities and events for their pupils. On this page you will find information about some of the activities and opportunities that we currently offer. This list, however, is not by any means exhaustive; if you have ideas about new events or would like to arrange tailor-made activities, please do get in touch. All of our activities are free of charge.
We send regular updates to teachers in our link schools. If you’d like to be added to our mailing list, please email outreach@st-hughs.ox.ac.uk.
Useful University of Oxford links for teachers:
Visits to St Hugh’s
We are happy to arrange day trips to St Hugh’s for state school groups. Visits are free of charge, and typically incorporate:
- A talk or workshop with Outreach staff, focused on higher education choices and preparing a competitive application to top universities.
- A Q&A session and tour of the College with current undergraduates, giving your students the opportunity to hear about life at Oxford and the application process from those with first hand experience.
- A free lunch.
- An afternoon academic activity of choice.
Popular options for the afternoon activity include:
Subject Taster Sessions: delivered by our subject tutors, we can provide academic taster sessions in a broad range of subjects across STEM, Humanities, Social Sciences, and Medical Sciences. Particularly popular are taster sessions in subjects or combinations not taught at school, which inspire students to explore their options.
Museum Visits: the opportunity to explore one of the University of Oxford’s four museums – the Ashmolean (art and archaeology), the Pitt Rivers (anthropology and ethnography), the Museum of Natural History, or the History of Science Museum.
Tours of the historic city centre: a chance for students to see more of the city of Oxford, including colleges, departments, libraries, and parks.
Study Skills Sessions: delivered by our Learning Development and Support Tutor, these sessions focus on arguments and academic confidence, time and task management, writing clearly and articulately, and revision and exam preparation.
If you would like to look into arranging a school visit to St Hugh’s, please email outreach@st-hughs.ox.ac.uk to request our booking enquiry form. Please note that we are only able to take booking requests from UK state-funded schools, with priority given to those in our link region, Kent.
Visits to your school
Our Outreach team are happy to visit schools in our link region to deliver talks, workshops, or other activities to students, teachers, or parents. Popular talks include (but are not limited to) the following:
- Raising Aspirations/Future Choices: talks and activities designed to encourage students to aim higher academically. These interactive workshops offer guidance on GCSE and post-16 subject choices and information on careers and graduate destinations. Using specific examples, we explain the ways in which course choices may (and may not) affect career prospects. Age groups: Y7-Y11
- Oxford Explained: talks that focus on the different courses available, University and College life, and entry requirements, as well as demystifying the Oxford application process. Age groups: Y11, Y12, and early Y13
- Personal Statement Workshop: this workshop offers guidance on how to preparer a strong personal statement for research-led universities and includes analysis and discussion of past examples. Age groups: Y12 – Y13
- Admissions Test and/or Interview Preparation Workshops: these sessions are geared towards students who are applying to Oxford or Cambridge. The aim is to provide applicants with knowledge of what these two stages entail, helping them familiarize themselves with the format. Some parts of the sessions are dedicated to looking at sample questions while others focus on confidence-building techniques. Age group: Y13
- Subject Tasters: the Outreach team are able to deliver subject taster sessions in our own areas of expertise (maths and languages/literature) and are happy to discuss this upon enquiry. Age groups: Y10 – Y13
We are happy to consider (and indeed encourage!) requests for multiple talks to be delivered on a single visit. Please note that due to the travel time required to reach many of our link schools, we are unlikely to be able to deliver a single short session such as an assembly unless combined with other talks as part of the visit.
If you are interested in arranging a visit to your school, please email outreach@st-hughs.ox.ac.uk with details of the proposed date(s) and session(s) and we will get back to you as soon as we can.
There wasn’t a single student who didn’t get something of real value from the day.
– Teacher testimonial
I really enjoyed being able to gain a greater understanding of the application process to competitive, high-ranking universities such as Oxford. […] The day was engaging, and I enjoyed being able to see the campus and being guided by current students who also had a great input into what life is like as a student at St Hugh’s College.
– Student testimonial
St Hugh’s and the wider University of Oxford also run a wide range of events, workshops, and taster days which you and your students may be interested in. The full schedule of upcoming Outreach activities is available here:
