Norfolk University Access Summer School

Hosted by Norwich School and funded with the support of private benefactors, Norfolk Summer School has been running for 19 years and aims to help the brightest pupils from all backgrounds who are considering Oxbridge, medical school, and other academically demanding universities.

Through a range of onsite and remote activities, including sessions on interview practice, in-depth subject seminars taught at university level and a chance to experience a university-style interview, pupils are given the chance to hone their subject knowledge and improve their skills in preparation for university application. Much of the teaching is delivered by the Norwich School staff, in addition to which guest speakers are invited to give talks on student finance, studying abroad and gap years. Participants are also given the opportunity to meet existing university students to learn about their experiences.

Norfolk Summer School is usually run as a one week event at Norwich School, but as a result of the pandemic it was delivered as a fully virtual programme in 2020 and post-pandemic it offered a hybrid model; virtual sessions took place in July (which included the subject seminars and group talks) and this was followed up with an onsite event where the interviews and final subject seminars took place. For the Law group, this included a mock trial using a case study pupils had been working on over the summer.

Background

At the request of Heads of Sixth in Norfolk the NUAP was established in 2001 and was designed to encourage under-represented groups in Norfolk to raise their aspirations and dispel myths surrounding the university application process - particularly in terms of Oxbridge and Russell Group Universities.

A challenging menu of activities is offered in the programme - with the summer school being the real highlight. Admissions tutors from the UK, USA and Europe attend, there are talks from visiting speakers and MPs. Help is given towards putting together personal statements and participants get to experience university style lectures and seminars.

Impact

Here is just some of the feedback from pupils who enjoyed Norfolk Summer school this year:

"It was amazing to hear people who are clearly very passionate for their subject talk about areas of Physics that they're interested in, and in turn this instilled a newfound passion for areas of Physics that until then I had either disliked or not fully explored."

"The mock interviews were very helpful in both providing some confidence in myself and for learning what to improve on."

Pupils who attended Norfolk Summer School also reported that following the event they felt more likely to apply for university and more prepared for the application process, with 100% of attendees confirming that the interview practice had been useful.

Pupil Involvement

Overall, the school welcomed 58 Year 12 pupils who joined from 11 Norfolk Schools. During the week, 75 subject seminars were delivered, totalling 105 hours of teaching and pupil attendance exceeding 6,400 hours. There were also eight group talks across the two Saturdays and weekday evenings, and 90 practice interviews were held. The 21 Norwich School staff who delivered the programme were joined by guest speakers and former pupils and in total each pupil benefited from over 113 hours of individual information, advice and guidance to support them in their journey to further education.

Frequency

Norwich School will continue to run this important feature of Norfolk's Higher Education Calendar.