Students at Tiverton High School have graduated from a university programme designed to prepare students from non-selective schools for top tier university places.
The eleven students from Years 8 and 9 worked alongside a PhD tutor on The Scholarship Programme, attending weekly tutorials and working at least one key stage above their current age. At the end of the programme, students had to submit the equivalent of a dissertation, which was then marked and graded in the same way that work is at university. This is standardised nationally before students are given their grades and feedback.
The students achieved four Firsts and seven x 2:1s and attended an online graduation run by the school to celebrate their success.
Sarah Hill, English teacher and lead for ‘More Able and Talented’ students, said: “The 11 students involved in the Scholars Programme have been outstanding this year. This unique programme gives them a real sense of how university life works. It introduces topics that are outside of their usual curriculum, and above all challenges them to helps to raise aspirations beyond school.”
Jack Slater, who tutored the students and is studying for his PhD in Theology at Exeter University, said: “The students were consistently very impressive and showed a real depth of engagement with the material we covered.”
The Scholarship Programme is run by The Brilliant Club, a charity that works to increase the number of pupils from underrepresented backgrounds progressing to highly-selective universities.
