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Oxford Royale Academy?

Aimless2007

Hey guys,

has anyone heard of the Oxford Royale Academy? Its not Oxford University's official summer school, is it? Well, if anyone has attended it before, it'd be great if he/she could share his/her experience, :biggrin:

Reply 1

Cirsium

19

I'm fairly sure that Oxford doesnt have an official summer school as such - they run various different ones for various subjects...

Reply 2

Elles

17

It's not a summer school co-ordinated by the Oxford Colleges Admissions Office - which could be a definition of official? These are in conjunction with the Sutton Trust, Aim Higher or local initiatives for UK students rather than commercial.
Or for adults the Uni Department of Continuing Education runs some.

I'd never heard of the Oxford Royale Academy though from their website they have "Oxford Royale Academy contracts with the University for the use of its facilities and contracts with University tutors, but does not operate under the aegis of the University of Oxford." as a disclaimer.

Are you going on it this summer or just considering it in the future? If the latter there quite a lot of companies that seem to run them so might be worth shopping around to avoid being ripped off too much. :smile:

Reply 3

Aimless2007

OP

Too late for me, ^^... I've already signed, cos they looked pretty decent, and they have tutors from oxford and cambridge, so its not like one of those companies that only use their facilities but use their own tutors...

Reply 4

MatthewH

3

Love the Royale rather than Royal... makes it sooo much classier, fo sure.

And the fact that you can't call something Royal (I think) unless the Crown says so.

Gotta remember that anyone can call themselves Oxford Anything and have nothing to do with the uni.

Reply 5

Aimless2007

OP

Oxford should really open its own official summer school... I mean even Cambridge has one

Reply 6

Aimless2007

OP

Well... access scheme is for underprevileged right? What if your just plain middle-class??

Reply 7

Cirsium

19

I think I'm missing something here
Why SHOULD Oxford open a summer school in the first place? The academic tutors use the summer to do extensive research etc, and I expect the majority would much rather be doing that than teaching
And as for EVEN Cambridge has its own... name me a few unis that do OTHER than Cambridge? Most of the summer schools I could name are either for undergrads of they're at boarding schools rather than unis.

Reply 8

RichE

15

pearfire

Oxford should really open its own official summer school... I mean even Cambridge has one

What Cambridge summer school is this?

Reply 9

Aimless2007

OP

since when is middle-class comfortable?? well, I dont think summer school can be that of a bad idea, since many schools in the US have summer schools... its a good opportunity for us to get to know the colleges and get a feel for the uni

Reply 10

Fluffy

15

Never heard of it, and I've maintained a fair few links with Oxford since I left...

Who are the Oxford University tutors? I hope they're doing this in their holiday - the University do not take kindly to this sort of thing otherwise!

Reply 11

RichE

15

pearfire

since when is middle-class comfortable?? well, I dont think summer school can be that of a bad idea, since many schools in the US have summer schools... its a good opportunity for us to get to know the colleges and get a feel for the uni

having looked at the costs of their courses, I would guess only the comfortable could afford them. I'm not suggesting you won't get your money's worth or have a good time, but why exactly do you think the university itself should be running such summer schools.

Reply 12

Cirsium

19

I think it could be argued that the university really doesn't need to give people a chance to get to know the place - cos let's face it they're hardly struggling for applicants anyway and the only people who might be put off from applying unless they get a feel for it first are likely to be, as yorkshire lass says, those on the Access Scheme.

Reply 13

RichE

15

Bekaboo

I think it could be argued that the university really doesn't need to give people a chance to get to know the place - cos let's face it they're hardly struggling for applicants anyway and the only people who might be put off from applying unless they get a feel for it first are likely to be, as yorkshire lass says, those on the Access Scheme.

I think the university does have that obligation, but that open days do this sufficiently. the summer schools it's involved in aren't of the "apply to Oxford" variety, they're about raising aspirations of reasonably bright students and most of the criteria for getting on the schools are social.

Reply 14

RichE

15

The two sponsors of the summer schools are the Sutton Trust and Aimhigher - see

http://www.admissions.ox.ac.uk/liaison/summer/

and both are mainly aiming to get students from non-traditional backgrounds thinking about uni. The criteria for both are mainly social.

Reply 15

Elles

17

yorkshirelass

Do they not have two different kinds of summer school?

My first link in post 3 was to the OCAO pages outlining the summer schools on offer. To summarize:

http://www.admissions.ox.ac.uk/liaison/summer/

Sutton Trust Summer School
Each year, Year 12 students from maintained schools and colleges across the UK are invited to apply for the Sutton Trust Summer School.

The students spend a week in Oxford, staying free of charge in one of the colleges. They take a course of study designed to complement their A-levels, which is taught by Oxford tutors and closely resembles that of a first year undergraduate. Students attend lectures and seminars in their chosen subject and work towards a mini-tutorial at the end of the week. In addition to this, students participate in a wide-range of extra-curricular and social activities including African Drumming, bowling, ice skating and singing.

The Summer School is funded by Oxford University Widening Participation funding and the Sutton Trust with the aim of raising the aspirations of able young people and motivating students with the potential to obtain places at universities like Oxford.

The Aimhigher Summer School - A Taste of Oxford (Year 11)
Oxford University hosted its 6th Higher Education Summer School in 2005. Higher Education Summer Schools are funded by the government, with places organised via students' schools and Aimhigher South East. They enable Year 11 students from state schools in England with little history of Higher Education in their family to spend a week in a higher education institution. The week will have a busy schedule of academic taster sessions, extra-curricular activities and social events. The aim is to provide an exciting introduction to HE and to inspire the participants to apply to HE after their Post-16 studies.

The Aimhigher Summer School (Year 10)
The 2nd Higher Education Summer School was run in July 2005. Sixty students from state schools across the South East Region stayed for three days at Somerville College in Oxford. The summer school gave the opportunity for Year 10 students to meet other students and participate in the following programme.

Find out what college and university life is like - both social and academic
Find out about the latest courses available in further and higher education
Find out about the benefits of further and higher education - what's in it for you?
Study taster sessions in a range of academic and vocational subjects with staff from the colleges and universities
Meet and work with Student Mentors, who are currently studying at university
Meet and make friends with a range of other Year 10 pupils who are considering whether going on to college and university is for them.

So they're not really Oxford recruitment exercises - although apparently about half of Sutton Trust students go onto apply.

The Oxford Access Scheme summer schools are slightly different - they're not government funded &
nor organized by the OCAO (slightly complex student society/charity status & sponsorship) so the mission is more specifically defined: "to encourage young people from inner city backgrounds, especially those from minority ethnic communities, to enter Higher Education in general and Oxford University in particular".

pearfire - what is the official cambridge summer school for prospective undergraduates open to all who can pay for it? Done a quick search & I can only find details of postgraduate or International summer schools for over 18s on their site.

Reply 16

Aimless2007

OP

I got the material for cambridge's summer school from my english teacher, its something like 500p for 2 weeks...
maybe summer school isnt that common in the UK, but it is in many countries such as the USA, so I dont see how it can be that of a bad idea... the rooms are empty anyway, so why not make some extra money? But I think I get your opinions, so we dont need to elaborate further on this issue...

Reply 17

Athena

6

pearfire

the rooms are empty anyway, so why not make some extra money?

They hire the rooms out to all kinds of conferences - it can be a massive money maker for the colleges, and they make a lot more out of business men than they would out of students on summer schools.

Save your money for visits to the universities and buying books for extra reading. You'll profit more from that than from anything else.

Reply 18

thefrustrated

Re: Oxford Royale Academy?
Too late for me, ^^... I've already signed, cos they looked pretty decent, and they have tutors from oxford and cambridge, so its not like one of those companies that only use their facilities but use their own tutors...

which program did u join? is it good? more like acdemic exchange or just those for fun? does that help you to learn more about uni life and the subjects?

Reply 19

Assassnum

by the way: the teachers ARE NOT oxford tutors. well. some of them are,however, not all of them, some are grad students or phd students at Oxford.

Oxford Royale Academy?

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