Future Scientists (STEM) – Headington

15 Hours of Academic Content Per Week
Take part in 15 hours of science-focused academic learning each week, guided by an experienced tutor. Lessons are interactive and practical, encouraging curiosity and discovery as you explore topics across biology, chemistry, and physics through experiments, demonstrations, and engaging discussions.

Time to Shine Projects
Apply your scientific understanding in collaborative ‘Time to Shine’ group projects. Working with your peers, you’ll tackle exciting challenges, develop creative solutions, and present your findings at the end-of-week ceremony — a celebration of innovation, teamwork, and confidence.

Excursions
Embark on inspiring excursions designed to spark curiosity and adventure. You’ll experience the best of UK culture and science through visits to destinations such as Thorpe Park, London, and Oxford — creating lasting memories and new perspectives along the way.

Social Programme
Enjoy a vibrant social schedule filled with activities such as football, basketball, tennis, arts and crafts, and specialist sessions like off-site bowling, talent shows, capture the flag, and secret cinema. These activities help you explore new interests, have fun, and build lifelong friendships.

Develop English Language Skills
Throughout the programme, you’ll have numerous opportunities to improve your English — expanding your scientific vocabulary, refining your communication skills, and gaining confidence in presenting your ideas, including during your Time to Shine project.

End-of-Course Report and Certificate
At the end of the programme, you’ll receive a personalised end-of-course report and a certificate of achievement. These documents highlight your progress, skills, and contributions throughout your studies. The report includes constructive feedback from your tutors, while the certificate recognises your commitment and success — valuable additions to future academic applications.

The Big Solutions Challenge — Science in Action

Each week concludes with a live showcase where Future Scientists present a model that demonstrates how science can overcome a major global challenge. Each team sets up their experiment and demonstrates it in action, showing how scientific thinking can offer solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems. The audience of their peers and tutors not only sees the finished model, but also hears the reasoning behind it — the science, the choices, and the potential impact.

Design a Clean Energy Innovation

In the first week, students design and demonstrate a model that provides clean energy. This could be a small solar array, a wind turbine, or a method for storing power efficiently. Students show how the system generates and uses energy, explaining why their solution could help reduce reliance on fossil fuels.

Engineer Solutions for Food and Water Security

In the second week, students create an experiment that addresses food or water scarcity. Examples include hydroponic growing systems, water-filtration designs, or methods for recycling resources. The emphasis is on making the science visible and practical — demonstrating how the idea could scale to meet global needs.

Understanding Core Scientific Principles
Develop a deep understanding of the essential concepts in biology, chemistry, and physics, and explore how these disciplines interconnect to explain the natural world. You’ll build a solid foundation for further scientific study and gain the confidence to engage with new and challenging ideas.

Developing Practical Skills
Gain hands-on experience in planning and conducting experiments, gathering accurate data, and analysing results. These practical sessions help you think like a scientist — methodical, observant, and curious about how discoveries are made and tested.

Thinking Critically About Science
Enhance your ability to evaluate evidence, consider multiple perspectives, and think deeply about the social and ethical implications of scientific progress. You’ll develop the confidence to question information, form reasoned conclusions, and understand science as both a creative and responsible pursuit.

Communicating Scientific Ideas
Practise expressing complex scientific concepts clearly and engagingly through discussions, written tasks, and presentations. By learning to communicate effectively, you’ll strengthen your confidence in sharing ideas and collaborating with others in scientific inquiry.

Module 1: Life and Living Systems
Investigate the fascinating world of biology, from the microscopic structure of cells to the dynamic relationships within ecosystems. You’ll study key biological processes such as respiration, growth, and adaptation, while examining how human actions influence the natural environment. Through hands-on lab work, you’ll develop essential scientific techniques in observation, data collection, and analysis.

Module 2: Matter, Reactions and Energy
Explore the fundamental principles of chemistry and physics by uncovering what matter is made of and how it changes. You’ll observe chemical reactions, analyse the properties of different materials, and examine how energy moves and transforms between systems. Each practical activity brings abstract scientific ideas to life through experiments you can observe, measure, and explain.

Module 3: Earth, Space and Scientific Frontiers
Journey beyond the laboratory to study the forces that shape our planet and the wider universe. You’ll investigate Earth’s geological systems, explore the motion of planets and stars, and consider how science helps us make sense of both our world and the cosmos. The module also introduces recent scientific breakthroughs, offering insight into emerging discoveries and the future of scientific exploration.