Summer School

Our annual Summer School invites around 60 Gifted and Talented Year 5 students from state primaries across London to participate in a week of activities both academic and co-curricular. In 2019 the Summer School ran as a 'Spy Camp', with students acting as spies as they hunted for and solved clues in subjects ranging from drama to science. Students also attended an exciting trip to Bletchley Park. 

Aims

To give primary school children the opportunity to experience life at secondary school and explore subjects and topics they may not have come across before such as an introduction to Mandarin, History of Art and debating.

We would also like parents to consider St Paul's for their daughters and we provide information about our bursary programme.

Background

We ran a pilot summer school in July 2014 after holding primary enrichment days for a number of years. We had very positive feedback from the day events but felt that a week would give students the opportunity for more in depth learning. The Summer School now runs annuallyl The programme includes extended sessions in Mathematics, Science and English and lessons in Geography, MFL, History of Art and Music. There is also a Drama workshop and a day of debating workshops. The week ends with Art and Design and sports activities.

Resources

Teachers from the school run sessions in a variety of subjects. Approximately 20 of our girls volunteer to help during the week.

Two non teaching staff organise and oversee the event.

There is a small registration fee payable by parents and this is waived for children in receipt of Free School Meals.  

The event is funded by the School.

 

 

Impact

The feedback from the children themselves and the parents has been overwhelmingly positive and it seems that the cohort benefited from the experience in a very broad way. The students who take part are invited back for a day the following summer term.

Pupil Involvement

From St Paul's Girls' School approximately 20 girls from years 10, 11 and 12 volunteer to help during the week.

From the participating schools approximately 60 pupils from Year 5 attend the Summer School.

Frequency

Ongoing, annual outreach initiative.