In collaboration with our Outreach Team, our Early Career Teaching and Outreach Fellow, Tom Crawford, is running a mentor programme for high-achieving Y12 students looking to apply to a STEM subject at Oxford later this calendar year. Tom is a science communicator who has regularly been featured on Numberphile – an educational YouTube channel with over 4 million subscribers.

The mentoring programme will take the form of regular group sessions led by Dr Crawford which will focus on topics such as supercurricular activities, choosing a college, writing a personal statement, preparing for admissions tests, and interview guidance.

Students will need to apply for the programme with a short statement of interest and a reference/nomination from their teacher which includes predicted grades. It will be open to all students from non-selective state schools. Contextual data will be used in a similar manner to the Oxford application process, such that the following will be used to inform decisions:

• Students’ home postcode (POLAR and Acorn)
• Free school meals status
• In-care or care-leaver
• Pre-16 and post-16 school performance against national average

Applications are now closed.

Mentoring sessions will take place over Microsoft Teams with a member of the St Edmund Hall Outreach Team present at all times. All practitioners have an enhanced-DBS certificate and have completed safeguarding training through the OSCB.