Worcester’s Access and Admissions Officer, Charli Hopkins, visited Beckfoot School in Bradford on 24 January.

She went into the classroom to encourage students to consider applying to Oxford, and to promote broad and curious thinking. Around 50 students, currently in Year 12 and from four different schools, took part in the workshop. She took them through a range of interesting academic material and challenging questions by using Oxplore, the University’s first digital outreach portal. The website draws on the latest research at Oxford and was built with extensive feedback from groups who are underrepresented at the university.

‘Can war ever be a good thing?’ and ‘Are real-life friends better than online ones?’ were the two questions that the students had to tackle in the workshop. The session aimed to deepen and harness their abilities to think creatively, flexibly and critically – skills that they would be expected to develop at university.

Charli said: ‘It was excellent to see how curious, engaged and excited the students were when tackling these complex questions. I hope that the day helped to show them that they have the potential to go to a leading university, such as Oxford.’

In the last academic year (2017- 2018), Worcester hosted visits for groups from 38 schools and colleges (mainly from institutions in our link regions of West Yorkshire and Northamptonshire), and went out to schools and a Higher Education Fair to deliver presentations and workshops aimed at raising students’ aspirations.