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About Us

We believe in a world in which young people go on to do things which maximise their potential, are socially impactful, and make them happy. We created the Oxford Scholastica Academy to help them prepare for exactly that.

Welcome to the Oxford Scholastica Academy

We are the Oxford Scholastica Academy, a British education company on a mission to inspire young people to discover what their futures could hold:

  • The courses they could study
  • The careers they could have
  • The citizens they could be.
In doing so, we aim to give our students the most memorable summer of their lives in the stunning setting of the historic and academic city of Oxford.

Our Learning Philosophy

We offer a selection of carefully curated summer courses for students aged 12-18 with the aim of equipping you with greater certainty over the future direction you want to pursue. Our courses will take you beyond theory and textbooks, so you can experience first hand what studying, and working in a field could actually be like. On all of our courses, you will:

Learn:

Through engaging classes led by exceptional tutors
U

See:

Meet our inspirational heroes and see what your potential futures could hold

Do:

Put your learning into practice through a practical, hands-on challenge
Explore our summer courses

An amazing cultural and educational experience! Definitely worth attending. OSA honestly defeated any doubts I had prior to travel! 

Aside from giving me a chance to learn about Medicine in a practical way that I would never had the chance to experience at my school, it also gave me new friends and increased my self-confidence.

I never thought that I could build such a strong relationship with a group of people in only two weeks!

Kamal Aziz

Meet our Senior Team

Our experienced team have been running summer schools for many years.

We are passionate about supporting students to fulfill their potential, so we source the finest tutors (most of whom teach at leading universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, and London Universities), hand-pick the best staff, and work hard to give our students the most amazing summer fortnight. In short, we aim to give our students a life-transforming experience.

Jamie

Jamie Dear BA Hons (Oxon), Founder

Jamie moved to Oxford in 1992. After studying at Oxford University he worked in the non-profit education sector, founding a social enterprise which has raised £1/2m for charity. He is passionate about the transformative impact of inspiring teachers, and has run summer schools for the past five years.
Sophie

Dr Sophie Dear BA BM BCh (Oxon), Founder

Sophie is a trained doctor with a passion for teaching. She oversees the running of the summer school with her husband Jamie. Sophie studied Medicine at Oxford, and has won awards for her teaching of Oxford University medical students. She is also a keen pianist, gardener and cook!
Kit

Mrs Kit Anderson, Pastoral Consultant

Kit is a trained nurse. Her colourful career has seen her act as Housekeeper to Rolling Stone Mick Jagger, and she currently works as a “Dame” (Housemistress) at Eton College, where she has overseen the welfare of hundreds of students over the past twenty years.
Mona

Dr Mona Sakr BA (Oxon) MA PhD, Head of Teaching

Mona oversees the quality of our teaching. She studied Experimental Psychology at Oxford University, subsequently working as an English teacher. Her doctorate is in Education & Psychology, and she works as an educational researcher at the Institute of Education.
Best staff ever! Ade, Henry, Molly, Georgia, Kit, Jamie and Sophie (and her amazing food!) you were a big part of making this summer memorable!!
Aline Sampaio Gouvêa, Young Doctors' Academy, Brazil

Meet the rest of our team

Full Accreditation

We have been independently accredited by the British Accreditation Council (BAC), who have assessed our teaching quality, pastoral care and overall standards as a short course provider for Independent Further and Higher Education.

Your safety is our first priority

As a family-run summer school, the personal care of our students is the core concern of our co-founders, Jamie and Sophie.

We have staff on site 24 hours a day and during the day there are always lots of staff members around should students need anything. Students will also be given contact phone numbers for all our staff and we are reachable by email and Facebook for any non-emergency issues.

All our staff are first aid trained and receive child protection training. If parents need to contact their children and cannot get through directly, we also provide 24/7 emergency numbers for several of our senior staff. Our Director is also on call 24 hours a day should parents or students have any urgent issues.

All our staff and tutors undergo strict regulatory and police checks before they join our team, so you can be confident that your child will be well looked after.

A personal experience

Right from the start, your primary point of contact will be Photis.

We get heavily oversubscribed each year (to the best of our knowledge we’re the fastest summer school in Oxford to be fully booked), so Photis is here to give you impartial advice to make sure we’re the right summer school for you, and to be available to answer any questions you have throughout the build-up to the summer school, during it and afterwards.

If we’re not the right fit, we’ll be more than happy to recommend other summer schools.

In the run-up to the summer, we offer all our students a welcome call. Izzy, our Community Manager, will say hello, learn more about what you’re looking to get out of your time with us (so we can tailor your experience) and answer any of your questions.

We’re aware that for many of our students this summer will be the first time you’ll be away from home, and we want to make sure you feel comfortable and prepared.

Izzy and Photis will be available throughout the run-up to the summer school, and will be able to help with any queries or to support with things like booking your airport transfers.

Sophie

Photis Loizou

Sophie

Izzy Mohammed

I researched many summer schools before deciding on this one and I loved that I could speak to the course leaders directly rather than to marketing staff of a large company who had never been to the location and had no direct knowledge of course content.
Rachel, Parent, USA

Centrally Located

Our campus is located right in the middle of Oxford, so you'll never be far from all the classes, culture and activities. Oxford is also very easy to get to, being only an hour away from London's main international airport (London Heathrow) and other major airports are also close by. We are very happy to advise with travel arrangements and help with transfers.

St Thomas'

Cherwell House

Lampl

St George's

Edwards

Why Oxford?

Oxford is one of the world’s most famous, historic and beautiful cities. Referring to the many stunning university buildings which dominate the Oxford landscape, the poet Matthew Arnold called Oxford:

“That sweet city with her dreaming spires”

The combination of the history, architecture and academic reputation of Oxford make it the perfect setting for the Oxford Scholastica Academy.

Here are some other reasons why we think Oxford is one of the UK’s best cities:

Oxford was the inspiration for much of the Harry Potter films...

…including the Great Hall here at Christ Church College (Hogwarts dining hall).

Narnia, Lord of the Rings, Alice in Wonderland...

…were all written in Oxford. Oxford has more published writers per square mile
than anywhere in the world!

Oxford is the home of the world's most famous University...

…Oxford University is the oldest English-speaking university in the world. It has educated 51 Nobel Prize Winners, 26 British Prime Ministers and 50 Olympic medal-winners (who have won 158 medals).

Remember, we’re not part of Oxford University, but we use its facilities each summer.

Our relationship with Oxford University

It is important for you to know that we are independent of Oxford University. Oxford University does not run its own summer schools, except for students from UK state schools (see here). So while many of our team and tutors have studied or taught at Oxford, and we use the university’s facilities, we are not formally connected with the university or with St Peter’s and Corpus Christi Colleges.

Not just for Summer…

We’re often told that the two or four weeks spent with us at OSA are the best summer breaks our students have ever had, but we are passionate about continuing to support our alumni after those two weeks are over, and well into their futures.

That’s why we’ve set up the OSA Foundation, OSA Inspires, and OSA Mentors — to help you stay connected to our network of incredible young people from around the world and get the support to need to make your future ambitions a reality.

 

Did you know that OSA alumni go on to change the world, in a whole variety of ways?

As part of our on-going commitment to helping our students be incredible citizens of the world, we want to do something to help them, by offering them a chance for continued advice, publicity, and funding for the ventures they go on to pursue.

OSA Mentors is an ongoing programme of weekly coaching for any of our alumni who wish to be further supported by OSA after their course. Students are matched with one of our team and will have Skype mentoring sessions on a regular basis.

OSA Mentors is designed to give students greater:

  • Confidence about their skills, knowledge, and potential
  • Awareness of the possibilities and opportunities they could go on to achieve, broadening their horizons
  • Clarity about exactly which university, course, and career path to choose
  • Ambition to stretch and challenge themselves, setting goals which take them out of their comfort zone
  • Understanding about how to reach these ambitious goals
  • Motivation to succeed
OSA Inspires is an online resource hub which aims to give students greater clarity over their potential future choices.

  • Discover how your interests and skills could lead you to amazing jobs you never knew existed
  • Think about how we can prepare for a quickly changing job market in the future
  • Explore what real life studying a subject is like with personal accounts from students across the world
  • Hear from professionals in a huge variety of industries to find out if their job sounds like a good fit for you
  • Get the tools and information you need to apply to follow your dreams

Ready to kickstart your future?

Book My Place!