We are committed to identifying pupils who are academically able and then challenging them to improve even further.
Being an Academic Scholar is more than just getting good grades and reports. It’s about the academic mindset.
Starting in Year 7 and continuing throughout the Senior School, our Head of Academic Scholars, teachers and House staff help to instil in these pupils a sense of intellectual curiosity. We’re also keen to provide co-curricular opportunities for able pupils, and subject departments will help them enter regional and national competitions such as mathematics challenges and writing competitions.
The Scholars’ Programme is both for those officially holding Academic Scholarships and those who have demonstrated a willingness to effectively engage with academic thinking above and beyond their lessons. At the Senior School, the Programme covers all year groups from Years 9 to 13. Our Sixth-Form Academic Scholars are expected to nurture and guide the younger students and act as role models and mentors.
Our Scholars are stretched through a variety of different academic opportunities from the Debating Club to the Model United Nations trips. The core of the programme is the weekly meeting and the topics vary enormously stretching, challenging and opening up minds to new possibilities and new points of view. There are teacher-led sessions from Classical Rhetoric and Logic to “How to play bridge”, pupil- led presentations, external guest speakers and trips to leading universities and events such as Teentech where some of our young scholars will mingle with hundreds of other like-minded pupils, meeting over two hundred scientists, thinkers and engineers.
Every year we also host a Scholars’ Dinner where an eminent guest speaker joins us for the night.