Hillingdon & Southwark

As well as working with schools in the North East of England, St Anne’s is also partnered with schools in the London Boroughs of Hillingdon and Southwark.

We visit these schools regularly throughout the year, running our typical workshops and presentations. Given their proximity to Oxford, it is also a pleasure to welcome these schools to Oxford as part of our offering of Discovery Days (Year 10-11) and Taster Days (Year 12).

During each of these visits, students are given Information, Advice and Guidance sessions about exploring university options or applying to university, as appropriate. During the Discovery Days, students also visit one of Oxford’s fantastic museums, whilst during the Taster Days students attend academic taster sessions that aim to encourage discussion about a university-level topic.

In 2023-24 we ran 11 Discovery Days for our London link regions, and 9 Taster Days.

We also work with charities and organisations that work in these areas. For example, The Access Project, who works with under-resourced young people to gain places at top universities, and the Brilliant Club, whose Scholars Programme has links all over the country. Multi-Academy Trusts, such as United Learning, also offer opportunities to work with schools in our link regions and beyond. We also have a particular relationship with Hillingdon Virtual School, who support young people who are Looked After Children, or in local authority care. It is a real pleasure to run university exploration visits for these young people.

This year these activities comprised a further 10 of our events.

We also have a regular visit from our one Hillingdon primary schools as part of a creative writing event, which we really enjoy hosting each year.

In 2023-24 students from Hillingdon and Southwark consistently gave us 90%+ positive feedback on the events we ran with schools, and variously described our events as ‘inspiring’ and ‘engaging’, with particular praise for our friendly student ambassadors and outreach staff.

We are always looking for more opportunities to engage with schools in our link regions of Hillingdon and Southwark – if this applies to you, please get in contact!