Teachers, Advisers and Schools

The Area Links scheme enables the Cambridge colleges to build effective, coherent relationships with schools and colleges across the UK by matching every area of the country with a specific contact point at the university. 

Through the Area Links scheme, Christ's College works with schools located in the following regions:

Lincolnshire, North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire

Herefordshire and Worcestershire

London Borough of Harrow

Whilst much of our outreach and admissions events are open to schools regardless of their location, we provide additional specific support to schools in our link areas. If your school is located in one of the above regions, please see our Link Areas page for further information. 

Schools from outside of our link areas are welcome on our school visit days (see below) where there is capacity, though priority for places will go to those from our link regions. Subject taster events, open days, regular webinars and residential events are open to schools from all regions - read more below on these.

Not in one of our link areas above? Find your link college contact here. 

Christ's College runs a series of regular webinars for potential applicants to Oxbridge and other highly-selective universities. The sessions have been designed to provide the core grounding any young person needs to work towards a competitive application, starting with their post-16 options through to understanding the application process and financing university.

Each session runs regularly - in other words, is repeated - throughout the year, so that students are able to attend no matter the stage in their application and research journey. By offering the same session multiple times through the year, no young person should miss out on information and guidance because they happened to look a little later than another. 

Webinars available:

Subject Matters: The Importance of Your Post-16 Subjects

Cambridge for Beginners

Christ's College: A Look at the Grounds & Facilities

Personal Statements & Competitive Applications

NEW FOR 2025: Student Finance Explained

Webinars last approximately an hour, usually with some additional time for questions where needed. Please note all sessions are live only - recordings are not circulated. Those who have  attended a session will receive a detailed follow-up email afterwards.

You can find out more about these sessions and their upcoming dates over on our dedicated Regular Webinars page.

Visits to Cambridge

There are a lot of myths about university, and Cambridge certainly has its fair share. Some of your students might be discouraged from applying by these myths, as well as by other, more real concerns like finance, moving away from home and socialising. The best thing is for them to come to the university to see what living and working here is really like and Christ's is pleased to be able to offer visits to the college for its Link Area schools.

Christ’s College is able to accommodate visiting schools groups of up to 40 pupils. We host groups of KS4 and KS5 pupils, but are unfortunately unable to host visits from KS3 and younger students. Visits can be full day, half day, a couple of hours, or just a tour of the college. Apart from transport to and from Cambridge, visits are entirely free of charge for state schools, including morning refreshments and lunch on full day visits.

Day visit timetables are extremely flexible; please get in touch at access@christs.cam.ac.uk to check possible dates and to organise a programme. Please see below for examples of day visit programmes for different year groups:

• Sample Key Stage 4 day visit programme
• Sample Year 11 day visit programme
• Sample Year 12 day visit programme

Once your event is booked, you may find the practical details helpful.

Please note that visits to Cambridge are in very high demand so please book early. Link area schools will be given priority when booking visits to Christ's.

Support Resources

In response to requests from our Link Area schools, Christ's has developed a number of support resources for schools.  These are designed to help staff to understand the Cambridge admissions process and to support them in helping students to prepare to apply in Year 12.

1. Supra-Curricular Enrichment Resources for Prospective Applicants:

Strong applicants to Cambridge and other competitive universities have often explored their chosen subject through wider reading and enrichment work outside of their A-Level studies.  To help schools and students to find resources for such supra-curricular activity, the University has compiled a document of supercurricular suggestions to get potential applicants started on their subject enrichment and exploration. You can find the PDF on this webpage. 

We have also compiled a few suggestions to get students started at the bottom of each of our subject pages on the Christ's website - just look for the 'Helpful Resources' section. 

2. Opportunities in Year 12:

We receive many emails asking us about summer schools and other opportunities for Year 12 students to get a "taste" of university whilst still at school.  Whilst we do not expect potential applicants to have done this, we are aware that there are many companies that offer very expensive programmes, which we would not encourage students to attend.  We have therefore put together a document containing information about the opportunities that do exist which are run by universities and charities as access and outreach programmes and so are usually free to attend.

This booklet also contains guidance for Sixth Form students looking to organise work experience placements.  Again, it is not an entry requirement of any Cambridge course that applicants have completed work experience in a relevant field, but we are aware that many schools require their students to undertake a couple of week's work experience in Year 12.  In that case, it is in the students' interest to spend this time in a way that is relevant to their future plans, so Christ's has worked with our colleagues in the University Careers Service to offer a guidance document:

Year 12 Opportunities Guide

3. Cambridge Admissions guide for Teachers and HE Advisers:

The University of Cambridge publishes an annual guide to admissions for teachers and HE/UCAS advisers.  You can find this here:

Applying to Cambridge: advice for teachers and HE advisers

If you or your colleagues would like information covering topics not included here, please get in touch at access@christs.cam.ac.uk.

As well as ensuring that you receive communications from us to help support students as well as signposting them to upcoming events and opportunities, plus admissions updates and guidance as it happens, signing up to our Teachers and Advisers Newsletter also means we know we have an up-to-date contact for your school. This is particularly important for those in our link areas, so if you aren't already receiving our emails, please sign up below!

Click here to register for our mailing list for teachers and advisers.