Academic Attainment Programme 2023/24

An Enrichment Curriculum is a series of four, linked, 90-minute academic sessions on a particular subject area. Each Enrichment Curriculum is carefully designed and delivered by a subject pedagogic expert to strengthen students' skills and knowledge, and to enrich and extend A-Level (or equivalent) content. The specific aim of these sessions is to provide students with additional support to achieve top grades in their current studies. 

Students will be enrolled on Enrichment Curriculums relevant to their A-Level subjects, which may include the following subjects: 

Students will complete preparatory work for each session and will also have the chance to do follow-up extension work after the session.

These sessions will take place from November to March, and students can expect to have approximately one Enrichment Curriculum session each month for each of their A-Level (or equivalent) subjects that is listed above. 

Alongside these subject-specific sessions, students will also attend monthly peer discussion groups from November to March. In these sessions, students will be asked to think about one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and share their ideas with a multidisciplinary group. These sessions aim to provide students with the opportunity to build confidence, sample the discussion-based teaching which is at the heart of Cambridge, and develop their problem-solving and enquiring mindset. 

Students will be set some information to read before the session, on which they will share their ideas with the group.

Students' academic enrichment will be supplemented by monthly practical university readiness sessions from November to March, which will provide information and guidance on how to make a competitive application to Cambridge and other top universities.

This will then culminate in an intensive university application 'bootcamp' over the Summer holidays, where students will be able to work on making their university applications as competitive as possible with the guidance of the Lucy Cavendish College Admissions team. Students will benefit from comprehensive guidance on writing a competitive personal statement, preparing for interviews, and preparing for admissions assessments.

During the February half-terms, students will be able to take part in taster sessions in a range of subjects, to explore the wide range of subjects and careers available and to start thinking more seriously about their future university choices. Subject-specific sessions may include:

From May half-term to the beginning of the summer holidays, students will complete a Project relating to their subject interests. The Supracurricular Exploration Project aims to offer students the opportunity to consolidate and present their independent subject exploration, develop key skills necessary to achieve the top grades at A-Level (Scottish Highers and Advanced Highers/IB), boost their university applications, and share ideas with other students who share aspirations and subject interests. Students will choose between writing an essay, preparing and delivering a presentation, or preparing and sharing an academic poster. 

A wide range of skills and guidance sessions will take place over May half-term to support students through this process. Students who submit essays will receive individual feedback, and students who submit presentations and academic posters will attend Presentation and Discussion Sessions where they can share their research with other students. 

In the form, we will ask you for the following:

• ​​​​​Your basic details: first name and surname, date of birth, postcode, school/college
• Name and contact details of your referee teacher
• Your GCSE (or equivalent) grades
• Your A-Level (or equivalent) subjects
• The degree courses in which you are currently interested
• Short personal statement in support of your application
• Further contextual information related to our Widening Participation criteria
• Information about making any adjustments should you attend the event
• Your parents'/guardians' permission to attend this event
• An opportunity to sign up to our prospective applicant mailing list

You must provide us with the contact details of a teacher referee, who we will contact to verify the following:

• Your eligibility for the programme
• Your postcode
• Your achieved GCSE grades

We will also ask if they believe that you will benefit from the Academic Attainment Programme, and be able to manage the Programme's academic commitment alongside their current studies.

You must discuss this opportunity with your teacher so they are aware of what information they need to verify and provide by the relevant deadline. You must also ensure that they are happy for you to include their contact details on the form.

Your teacher should automatically receive a link to the verification form when you submit your application form. If they do not receive this email (and they have checked their spam box), then please ensure they get in contact with us as soon as possible at outreach@lucy.cam.ac.uk.

The deadline for completed teacher verification forms is 5pm on 13th October 2023.

The personal statement is useful for us in order to understand a bit more about whether the programme would be a good fit for you academically. You might like to explore the following:

• Why you chose to apply to this programme
• How you think this programme would benefit you academically
• How you think this programme would help you achieve your goals in relation to University 
• Anything else you think we should know

The character limit is 3000 (around 500 words). 

Please try not to worry too much about writing this; it is just one piece of information that is useful to us when shortlisting applicants.