The Queen's College Record 2023

OUTREACH
I’ve had a wonderful year as Schools Liaison, Outreach
and Recruitment Officer at Queen’s. With the pandemic
firmly behind us, we have continued but also expanded
and changed the College’s outreach initiatives. This
academic year alone, I have delivered outreach sessions,
workshops, and tours to over 80 different state schools
across all of our link regions and beyond.
Reports and College Activities
Lauren Shields,
Schools Liaison,
Outreach, and
Recruitment Officer
The biggest change to happen to my role this year was
the new partnership with the charity The Access Project.
This year, the charity has partnered with schools in the
Northwest of England – two in Darwen and two in Cumbria.
The charity provides volunteer-led online tutoring, student
enrichment activities, and one-to-one mentoring to 40 students in each school.
In true Queen’s style, the whole College has rallied around this partnership, with
students, staff, and Old Members giving up their time to become voluntary tutors
and delivering hundreds of hours of tutorials! We are excited to see how we can
continue to support the programme in future years.
Another positive change was the re-introduction of the Northwest Science
Residential, which hasn’t run since 2019. We welcomed 28 Year 12 students to
the College for four days in April, and they experienced a full timetable of activities
including taster lectures, tutorials with our tutors, and touring other colleges. The
feedback we received following the residential was reassuring and touching, with
all attendees reporting that the residential made them feel more comfortable and
prepared to apply to Oxford. I even bumped into a few of the attendees at a UCAS
Fair in Carlisle, and all were still planning to apply to Oxford for 2024 entry!
Our June 2023 Open Days were yet another great opportunity to welcome
prospective students from our link areas through the doors. We had close to 100
students from Cumbria, Lancashire, and Blackburn stay with us this year, taking
part in not only the Open Day but also a detailed Personal Statement workshop.
Teachers commented that without our offer of overnight accommodation, they simply
wouldn’t have been able to bring their students down to see Oxford. This issue of
geographical distance between us and our link regions is one that we continue to
grapple with and is something I hope we can continue to address in coming years.
As well as welcoming schools to Oxford and to Queen’s, I have also travelled to over
30 different schools in our link regions this academic year. These visits usually involve
hour-long workshops, delivered to a range of year groups. Depending on the year
group, these will have a different focus; for Year 12 it may be providing guidance on
College Record 2023 | The Queen’s College 37