Working with Schools and the Area Links Scheme
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. You can find out more about the Area Links scheme at this website.
Through the Area Links scheme, Christ's College carries out access work in the following regions:
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Lincolnshire
- North Lincolnshire
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North East Lincolnshire
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County of Herefordshire
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Worcestershire
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The London Borough of Harrow
Our Admissions and Outreach Officer works closely with schools in these regions. For those schools who have chosen to work with us, we offer several different kinds of support: in-school, online and visits to Cambridge. In addition, we also have a number of resources available for staff and students (see below).
In-School Support
Our Admissions and Outreach Officer makes frequent "tours" of our Link Areas, visiting schools to offer a variety of sessions for their students. Talks currently offered include:
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For Year 13 Students:
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For Year 12 Students:
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For KS4 Students:
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For KS3 Students:
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The details of all visits and talks can be tailored to the needs of your school to fit in with other outreach and careers advice your students may receive. We usually work with Year 9 students and above with priority for students in Year 12, but can discuss sessions for younger students if you feel this would be beneficial. We are also happy to provide teacher training to staff involved in the UCAS admissions process, or talks for parents, and to attend higher-education related events that you are organising. However, please note that, because of constraints on our time, we are not usually able to attend routine HE and Careers Fairs.
If you would like to organise a visit to your school, please sign-up to our regular mailing list below and look out for emails advertising dates when we will next be in your area. Alternatively, you can always email us at access@christs.cam.ac.uk.
Please also keep an eye on our outreach events pages for information about upcoming region-specific events. These include:
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Christ's HE+ Consortia - Worcestershire and Herefordshire
Online Support
Christ's College runs a series of regular webinars for potential applicants to Oxbridge and other highly-selective universities. There are four webinars on offer which run regularly throughout the year, so that students are able to attend no matter the stage in their application and research journey!
- Cambridge for Beginners (January-September)
- Personal Statements & Competitive Applications (March-August)
- Christ's College: A Look at the Grounds & Facilities (January- September)
- Subject Matters: The Importance of Your Post-16 Subjects (January-November)
The webinars will last for no longer than 90 minutes.
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:
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.
Becoming a Christ's College Link School
Christ's College is eager to work with all schools in our Link Areas. However, following recent changes to data protection legislation, we no longer have a registered point of contact at every link schools. If your school is located in a Christ's College link area and you are not currently receiving regular emails from us, it is possible that we have lost touch with you. Please consider getting back in touch with Christ's College by joining our regular mailing list on which you can indicate that you are in one of our link areas. When we are planning to visit your area or hosting events specifically for students in your area, we can then contact you directly.
In addition, Christ's is very happy to be in contact with teachers and schools from other areas of the country. If you are from a school outside of our Link Areas and would like your contact details to be added to our regular mailing list, please complete this online form to sign-up.
If you have any questions at all about Christ's College's provision of support for schools, please email us at access@christs.cam.ac.uk.