Page 5 - Keble Review 2014

The Keble Tutorial Enrichment Project
Danielle Yardy is currently completing
a DPhil thesis on the place of burning at the stake in the Elizabethan imagination
In October 2012, Oxford received over 17,000 undergraduate applications, and subsequently made more than 3,000 offers for entry. Of the offers made to UK residents, 43.2% went to pupils
at independent schools - a sector that educates just 7% of the UK school population but accounted for 37.2% of all applications to Oxford that year. Meanwhile, 35% of applications from state schools were for the University’s five most oversubscribed subjects, and just 13% for the five least popular.* Not enough state school pupils are applying to Oxford, and those that are might not be making the most of their application.
Recognizing this, the University
as a whole has committed ‘to help bright students make competitive applications, regardless of background’, and as part of this commitment each of the colleges is paired with a geographical region of the UK upon which to focus their own outreach initiatives. For Keble, this is Birmingham, Coventry, and their surrounding areas. That’s why, for the past nine months, I’ve been travelling up to Bishop Challoner Catholic College in King’s Heath. The school is one of a number in
the Midlands to have been involved in the pilot year of Keble’s Tutorial Enrichment Project. The project sends early career academics and DPhil students (like myself) into state schools within our region
to hold humanities and science tutorials with gifted students during their first year of A-levels. Rather than a fleeting visit to give talks, answer questions and deliver prospectuses, the project aims at a longer-term investment in the pupils’ road to higher education. By working with pupils to foster their academic interests, and with individual schools over time, it hopes to encourage more Oxford applications from the brightest pupils in the region.
At Bishop Challoner I’ve been working with a group of four
pupils all hoping to study either
the humanities or social sciences
at university, though without any firm ideas of a particular university, or even a specific course. At the end of our first tutorial (a whistle- stop tour of reading lists and essay writing followed by a discussion
of extracts from Coleridge’s ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’) I asked for their interests: history, English, French, politics. Faced with such
breadth it was challenging to pick subjects for discussion, and to keep all pupils engaged in each session
- particularly on areas they knew little about. Across the remaining tutorials we looked at topics as disparate as ‘the Western Canon’ and early modern witchcraft, following the recognizable Oxbridge undergraduate pattern: reading
list, essay submission, discussion. Though the group began quietly each week, with prodding and goading each debate was lively, and overran our time.
In July, the pupils visited the Oxford Open Day with a larger group of their classmates. After attending subject talks and visiting different colleges, they came for a tutorial
in Keble, which included what to expect in the subject aptitude
tests and mock interviews. In the final tutorial, later this month, I
will be helping to finalize personal statements - undoubtedly excising exclamation marks and the many synonyms of ‘passionate’. Whether any will apply to Oxford, I’m not sure; but should they decide to have a go - which I certainly hope some do - the Keble Enrichment Project will have undoubtedly allayed some of their fears.
*All application figures from:
www.ox.ac.uk/about/ facts-and-figures/ admissions-statistics/ school-type
Captaining Rugby
Keble graduate students Tatiana Cutts (DPhil Law 2010) and Jacob Taylor (MSc Cognitive Evolutionary Anthropology 2013) were both chosen to captain Blues Rugby – Tatiana ended her captaincy of the Women’s teams in 2014 while Jacob has taken the helm of OURFC from 2014. Here are their reflections.
Tatiana Cutts
Taking on captaincy was one of the best and worst decisions I have made so far. It was an incredible year: we began with
7 returning players and ended with 40; we lost our first game 91- 0 and very nearly beat the same team 2 months later (they even accused us of cheating: quite the compliment); from near-broke, we netted a profit of £30,000; BOTH our teams won Varsity. A reporter asked me how I felt about those results. The truth? Exhausted. I had come to define myself by the squad: its successes, yes, but also the galling start-of-season losses; the fears, doubts, hopes and disappointments of the players, and the fight against the appalling apathy with which women’s sport is widely confronted. And as it turned out, that took everything I had. But you know what? I’d do it all over again, because those girls are my daily inspiration. You want to see courage? Watch a squad of young women, most of whom are completely new to the game, play their hearts out against the team of internationals that UWIC field against us bi-annually. It’s humbling.
Jacob Taylor
It is a huge honour to be elected as OURFC captain by my peers, and I am excited by the challenge ahead. Like every other year, we are currently making our way through the foothills of an epic journey. I am at times anxious and afraid, but I am also spurred on by the friendships and spirit already forming in the player group. This year we commemorate the
55 fallen Blues who lost their lives in WWI. In a generation so estranged from the immediacy of violent conflict, I feel it is very important that we remind each other of the sacrifices made in a not-too-distant past. These sacrifices - made on real battlefields with real life and death consequences - remind me that the privilege of leading the team to this year’s Varsity Match is highly significant, and the opportunity to do so must be cherished. I am very grateful for the support I have received from Keble College in this regard. Varsity match tickets can be purchased at www.thevarsitymatch.com
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