Tackling Educational Inequality in Oxford: Jai’s Schools Plus Story
Hi I’m Jai, a historian in his final year at Balliol College, and former president of Schools Plus!
I first encountered Schools Plus as an overwhelmed first year, stumbling across the stall at Freshers’ Fair. Being bombarded by tutoring opportunities (something I’d always wanted to try), I simply signed up without paying much attention to it. I was immediately struck over the next couple of weeks how sophisticated and transparent the programme seemed, as I was sent emails from Oxford Hub and the Schools Plus committee (composed of current students who were passionate about education like myself) about the many subjects you could teach and the types of schools you could teach at.
Going through an informative, exciting and succinct training process was the opposite of patronising, I soon found myself ready to start my first day of tutoring. I had signed up to tutor English GCSE (to get away from my degree!) at Oxford Spires Academy up Cowley Road (to get away from the noisy centre of Oxford!).
I found tutoring over the rest of the year an absolute joy, and something I looked forward to much more than my weekly essay deadlines. I met a handful of delightful, clever and funny young people. Coming from a not-very-diverse part of Devon in South West England, it was lovely to meet so many students who were first- or second-generation migrants to the UK, sharing in their different cultural experiences and also rising to the challenge of teaching them some quite old English language texts that are quite culturally alien to even native speakers! One of the girls was from a remote village in Afghanistan, and stunned us all by relating a discussion about technology in one of the novels to when a unit of American tanks rolled into her village and one of the crews handed out free radios.
I channelled this growing passion for Schools Plus into an application to be President of the new committee, applying in Hilary term of 2018 and finding out I’d got the place at the end of the term. I had an amazing time jumping right into fundraising in Trinity with the support of my committee and the Education Programmes Officer at Oxford Hub (a member of staff employed to support the committee). We decided to enter the Oxford Town and Gown 10k Run! It was great to decide on an action plan as a team, setting up JustGiving profiles and going out for runs together in the city of Oxford to fundraise from members of the public. The run itself was gruelling but the feeling of completing it, and finding out we’d raised £1165 in total, was the best day of my first year in Oxford. We also rounded off the year by making very sweet exam packs which we sent to people in exchange for donations!
Michaelmas 2018 provided the exciting challenge of recruiting new freshers and coming full-circle as I stood at the Freshers’ Fair stall and encouraging people to sign up, then getting behind the scenes and gaining invaluable experience and confidence boosts from running the selection workshops for new volunteers.. I remember how overjoyed we all were finding out we’d signed up a record 265 volunteers! This was only bettered by us raising £2392 at the end of term when we held a fundraising week sponsored by Teach First and The Big Give, with the latter doubling all of our donations. We worked together with the other student committees that run Oxford Hub projects and ran a series of events, including a Christmas fair (with a raffle and an endless supply of Krispy Kremes!) and a club night.
Hilary 2019 came and it was lovely to round off my time as president by holding a huge panel event on the UK education system, inviting speakers from a variety of sectors and points of view; bringing a huge crowd to Pembroke’s Lecture Theatre.
I couldn’t recommend my time volunteering for Schools Plus enough, it is genuinely the most rewarding, honest and impactful project I have encountered in all my time here at Oxford.I still smile now (as a simple volunteer again) when I go to volunteer at my new school (I’m now at The Oxford Academy and loving it). Schools Plus has given me insight into the nature of the schools in Oxford — a city of apparent educational privilege, while helping me integrate into the local community and be much more than an itinerant student, but someone who feels connected to the city they study in.
Finally, Schools Plus has confirmed my desire to work in education, and has been instrumental in me securing an offer on the highly competitive Teach First teacher training programme. I couldn’t recommend this project to you enough — please get involved in any way! It all makes a direct, positive impact on the lives of the young people of Oxfordshire.
Sound like something you could do? Apply now: https://forms.gle/Qw7wZSXXW9Uqk6Dq6
