Oxford University has launched a free online platform for teachers in UK state schools to support their schools’ academic enrichment offerings. Oxplore Teach provides ready-to-use activities for learners from the age of 11 to support them in developing confidence and critical thinking skills, encouraging them to think like a university researcher.
The project is the latest access and outreach initiative from Oxford University, which has expanded its programmes to engage pupils earlier on in their educational journey, from the age of 11. The move is in response to research that identified what is known as the ‘leaky pipeline’; which shows that children from backgrounds of socio-economic disadvantage who were high attainers at Key Stage 2 are less likely to remain high attainers at GCSE and beyond.
The platform builds on the success of Oxford’s outreach website Oxplore: Home of Big Questions, which launched in 2017 with students in mind. The new platform responds to requests from teachers for a resource designed for their own dedicated use, in and out of the classroom.
As a former science teacher, I know how important it is to help students build academic confidence and develop critical thinking skills from an early age. Over the past few years, we’ve worked closely with schools and teachers to understand how Oxford can best support their work.
These new online resources are a direct result of that collaboration.
They’re designed to be easy to access and use, and we hope they’ll inspire discussion, spark creativity, and encourage students to explore new topics in fresh and engaging ways.
Dr Samina Khan, Director of Undergraduate Admissions and Outreach at the University of Oxford
The ready-to-use Oxplore Challenge sessions are designed to build students’ key skills through the exploration of interesting questions covering a wide range of disciplines. They have been created to be flexible and fit around the needs of teachers and can be delivered as a one-off 45-minute session, or a series of four 10-minute sessions within the school day, or at lunch and after school clubs.
Much of the content has been developed out of the Oxplore-Raising Attainment in Schools (RAIS) project – a six-year collaboration between Oxford and The Challenge Academy Trust (TCAT) in Warrington, aimed at developing key skills and widening access to higher education and especially to selective universities.
Can you speak more than one kind of English? A 45-minute session, where Year 7 and 8 pupils learn about dialect and different forms of English and are challenged to write a short play script featuring words that are unique to their region.
10-minute Oxplore Challenges are a series of four bite-sized 10-minute activities in which Year 7, 8 and 9 pupils are challenged to brainstorm their responses to a question, identify and select key pieces of evidence and present them as a structured argument. Questions include: ‘Can money buy happiness?’; ‘Should footballers earn more than nurses?’; and ‘Can we live without laws?’
The Oxplore Teach platform also includes Continuous Professional Development and Learning (CPDL) materials for teachers to help them support pupils in developing key skills. It has been created with the busy timetables of teachers in mind, allowing users to work on part or all of the modules, and return to them to suit individual schedules.
Find out more here: Landing Page | Oxplore Teach.
“The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world’s second-oldest university in continuous operation.”
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