Since the start of this academic year, twelve Year 10 students from Didcot Girls’ School and St Birinus School have been taking part in the Scholar’s Programme run by The Brilliant Club. The programme is designed to introduce school students to university-style research, learning and university life.

At the start of the programme, the students were invited to a launch event at the University of Southampton. As part of this event, students had a tour of the university, a question-and-answer session with current students and learnt key research-based skills during a study session. Following the launch event, the students had weekly tutorials with a researcher from the University of Reading who taught them about her research on Gothic fiction in nineteenth century and contemporary literature and culture. They then had to devise their own area of research based on what they had learned in the tutorials and write and research a 2000-word essay on their topic. These essays were then marked according to a university-style mark scheme.

Not only did all the students submit their assessments before the deadline, but they all achieved either 2:1s or 1sts! In order to celebrate their achievements, the Brilliant Club invited the students to a graduation ceremony at the University of Southampton where they were able to meet with students from other schools who had also successfully graduated from the programme. The day was a wonderful celebration of everything the students achieved over the course of the programme. It was also an intellectually stimulating day as the students shared their research with other Brilliant Club scholars from schools from across the south of England.  

All the students came away from the event with a sense of pride and anticipation for the opportunities that lie ahead. It was wonderful to celebrate the students’ hard work and success. Well done!