Following the resounding success of last year’s Pelican Programme, the second year of our super-curricular engagement initiative is underway.

This six-month Programme sees Year 12 students from educationally disadvantaged and underrepresented backgrounds, from across the UK, attending fortnightly online sessions to discuss a set reading, led by subject experts.

This year we have expanded the reach of the course, from 30 students last year, to 100 in 2023. We have also added two more subjects from last year, now offering Programmes in English Literature, History, French, Philosophy, Classics and Law.

This comes on the back of the success of last year’s Programmes, which resulted in many participants making applications to Cambridge or Oxford, including several who received an offer to study here at Corpus.

We have received some wonderful feedback from our 2022 Pelican Programmes graduates, one commented: “The Pelican Programme was the most important thing I did to get to where I am. Thank you so much for the opportunity!”

The Programmes have been created to facilitate what we call ‘super-curricular engagement’ in the Arts and Humanities, covering subject matter that is relevant to the course a student is interested in, but that is not covered as part of the school syllabus. Through exploring advanced sources and texts in a small online discussion group, students improve discussion skills and gain experience with handling challenging academic materials. We believe this benefits students applying to universities such as Cambridge by giving them the confidence they need to shine in an admissions interview.

“The Pelican Programmes are designed to bring out what students are really interested in. One of the amazing things about super-curricular study is being challenged about your own ideas, challenging someone else's ideas, not just about learning a set answer to a set question, but coming up with an innovative way to look at something,” says James Davies-Warner, Access and Outreach Coordinator.

All students who successfully complete their programme are invited to attend Pelican ‘Graduation’ Day at College and meet some our undergrads and academics.