Super-curricular Enrichment Resources
Another element of our Sixth Form offering is a wide variety of opportunities to engage in super and extra-curricular activities.
These are designed to enhance your profile in readiness for UCAS and career applications and also to give you the opportunity to read around your A Level subjects outside the prescribed syllabus and to delve into areas which are particularly interesting to you.
Doing this is a vital part of independent study and we are pleased to be able to promote a large range of opportunities to our Year 12 and 13 students.
Some of the activities will form a compulsory part of your independent study as we believe that they help to enrich your existing knowledge.
What is the difference between the two?
- Super-curricular activities are anything relating to your academic interests which aren’t part of your A Level syllabus. They show you’ve engaged in independent study around a subject.
- Extra-curricular activities are also important but include your hobbies, outside interests, sports and leisure activities and part-time work. For some subjects, such as PE, you may find there is considerable overlap between super and extra-curricular content, although super-curricular should have a more academic focus.
During your time at the Sixth Form, we expect every student to complete a minimum of two super-curricular activities. Many of these come in the form of MOOCs (Massive Online Open Learning Courses) and can be completed during your independent study sessions at school or in your own time.
We ask students to undertake these activities as we believe they are important enrichment tasks which will help them to explore life skills and broaden their understanding of their subject specialisms.
Coursera features 500+ courses, from more than 100 partners worldwide, including Duke University in the US.
Udemy offers free and paid-for courses, many from non-academic instructors.
Udacity focuses on free courses, categorised into beginner, intermediate and advanced-level. Students may also enrol in a number of paid-for courses in order to gain California State University system credits.
EdX is a non-for-profit provider, created by Harvard and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) universities. Today partners include the Australian National University, TU Delft (the Netherlands), and Rice, Berkeley and Georgetown universities in the US. EdX also offers ID verified certificates of achievement, for a minimum fee.
We also offer all students the opportunity to complete the EPQ – or extended project qualification, for more information about the EPQ click here
Below are a wide range of different super curricular opportunities we would like you to engage with:
Recommended Super-Curricular Activities from the University of Cambridge:
Additionally, there are a wide range of essay competitions that you can enter
New College of the Humanities (various subjects)
https://www.nchlondon.ac.uk/pre-university-programmes/essay/
University of Cambridge Newnham College Essay Competition (various subjects)
https://newn.cam.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduates/newnham-essay-prizes/
United Kingdom Mathematics Trust-Solo maths competitions, senior level
Trinity College Cambridge (various subjects)
https://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/undergraduate/essay-prizes/
National Novel Writing Month
Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge
Imperial Science Challenge
Christchurch College, Oxford (English)
https://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/research-and-academia/enter-tower-poetry-competition
Oriel college, Oxford (Social Sciences)
https://www.oriel.ox.ac.uk/study-us/schools-liaison/lloyd-davies-philosophy-prize
