Horizons is about one thing: sharing with every single one of our girls the incredible benefits that come with being a GDST Sixth Former.
These benefits come in many forms.
There’s our pioneering involvement in the GDST’s new Alumnae Mentoring Programme, which partners our Sixth Formers with GDST alumnae currently studying towards a university degree in their local area. There’s the GDST Careerstart Programme, to which all our Sixth Formers have automatic access, and from which they can source a network of high-level internships at prestigious global organisations.
Then there’s SPOC, our innovative collaboration with the Open University’s digital platform, FutureLearn, which saw our Sixth Formers become the first secondary-age students in the country to have access to MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) learning. Last, but very much not least, there’s the Sixth Form Scholars’ Programme, known as OWLS, which provides a forum for scholars and exhibition holders from Wimbledon High School and Oxford High School to engage in academic research, discussion and collaboration, creating an community of scholars that encourages students to look far beyond the curriculum.
GDST Alumnae Mentoring
As a Sixth Former at Oxford High School, your daughter will be joining a very special group: a group that will support her for the rest of her life. The GDST Alumnae Mentoring Programme is an extraordinary and innovative means of leveraging the GDST’s 70,000-strong alumnae network by matching each Oxford High Sixth Form student with a GDST young alumna. The mentors will be selected from alumnae who are currently studying at Oxford and Oxford Brookes Universities. They will be fully trained, fully reference–checked, and fully signed up to the GDST Mentoring Charter. These dedicated mentors will then be on-hand throughout your daughter’s time in the Sixth Form to give her advice about A Level study, university choices and life at university.
Careerstart
Through the GDST’s Careerstart Programme you will have access to a wide range of Internships and Insight Days at global organisations such as Siemens, Rolls Royce, Barclays, PwC, The Royal Opera House and Aberdeen Asset Management. During each Career Insight Day, students will get the opportunity to ask questions of employees at different levels, tour the business and take part in a career development workshop, covering topics such as the job application process, presenting and commercial awareness. Internships will be of a longer and, necessarily, more involved nature – and successful applicants will to these places will be highly prestigious for forthcoming
Our partnership with the Open University’s digital platform, FutureLearn, gives OHS Sixth Formers a unique and innovative on-line MOOC-style course which focuses on how to make the transition from school to university smoothly and prepares you for life beyond school with topics such as budgeting, time management, interview technique and negotiation skills.
The Sixth Form Scholars’ Programme, popularly known as OWLS (Oxford and Wimbledon Leading Scholars), is run in collaboration with scholars and staff at Wimbledon High School. The initiative brings together academic and STEM scholars and exhibition holders from both sixth forms to engage in academic research, discussion and collaboration, all of which goes far beyond the curriculum. Conducted both virtually and via a residential symposium hosted at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge, OWLS has established itself as a community of scholars which each year produces a range of pieces based on challenging assumptions and analysing aspects of their research specialisms. This work is published in an online journal, OWLS Quarterly, and leading academics from highly-ranked Russell Group universities and other centres of excellence in the UK contribute to each edition. Happily, OWLS also provides a great opportunity for students from within the GDST family to exchange stories and get to know each other a little better.