Our commitment to access

The University of Oxford has launched an ambitious national strategy to improve the diversity of our student body. Christ Church is particularly pleased to be part of the Opportunity Oxford programme and in recent years has been among the colleges with the highest number of 'Opportunity Oxford' offers.

We are keen to develop initiatives aimed at supporting students from ethnic minority backgrounds that are currently under-represented at Oxford with their applications. Our Discover Computer Science programme for Black and Mixed Black women who are enthusiastic about Maths and Computer Science aims to support pupils in exploring topics outside of the school curriculum, hoping to inspire them to continue their engagement with Computer Science and to consider studying it at university.

Through our Access Hub we collaborate with charities, student groups, and other organisations supporting students from minority ethnic backgrounds. These have included Target Oxbridge, Thinking Black, the Oxford and Cambridge Sikh societies, and Onyx Magazine.

While Oxford and Christ Church have overall made more offers to women than to men in some of the most recent admissions rounds, in some courses women remain under-represented. Christ Church holds an annual 'Women in PPE' programme to encourage and support applications to Oxford from women for Politics, Philosophy and Economics, a course that has a longstanding gender imbalance. We also offer a 'Discover Computer Science' programme, to encourage women from Black African and Caribbean backgrounds and women of mixed race with Black African and Caribbean heritage to explore the subject. Please contact access@chch.ox.ac.uk if you'd like to express an interest in 'Women in PPE' or 'Discover Computer Science'.

We always look forward to meeting with teachers and pupils in the North East of England, where we work together with our colleagues from St Anne’s and Trinity College. Our Access & Schools Liaison Officer visits the region regularly, and schools can book sessions by contacting us at access@chch.ox.ac.uk. We're also really excited to be offering our annual sustained contact programmes in the North East, 'Aim for Oxford' for pupils in Year 12 and an Oracy programme for Year 10s.

We're committed to encouraging and supporting promising applicants from across the whole of the UK. We know it can cost a lot to attend our Open Days if you come from further away, so we help cover those travel costs for students in financial need.

Our access and outreach activity focuses on sustained contact programmes, which we offer in both our link regions. In the North East of England, we offer an Oracy programme for pupils in Key Stage 4 and the Aim for Oxford programme for Key Stage 5. In Barnet, the Christ Church Horizons programme starts in Year 10, and continues up to Year 13. 

We also take part in the University’s sustained contact access programme, UNIQ, offering both online support to students, and in-person residentials in Oxford and at Christ Church.

We regularly collaborate with The Brilliant Club, welcoming pupils on the Scholars Programme to Christ Church. 

Christ Church plays a lead role in supporting IntoUniversity Oxford South East, a centre tackling educational deprivation in our local community. Based in Blackbird Leys, it is funded by Christ Church alumni, with matched funding from the University and help from the Queen's Trust. 

IntoUniversity works with local schools and young people to dramatically increase their excitement about learning, their motivation to study and their levels of achievement. Many Christ Church students volunteer to offer targeted support, tutoring, or mentoring, and we're delighted to host IntoUniversity events and ‘graduation days’ in College.

Christ Church has an 'Access Hub' through which we offer financial support to some other partner organisations. Our Hub partners also make use of our rooms to host events, and benefit from presentations and workshops run by our Access and Outreach staff. Our Access Hub partners have recently included:

• Thinking Black - an organisation that seeks to empower Black students through writing, speaking, and arts programmes. 
• Debate Mate – an educational organisation that teaches debating in schools situated in areas with high levels of child poverty, as a means of boosting academic attainment and promoting upward social mobility;
• the Sikh Society – a student society at the University of Oxford, whose Access Conference has been supported and hosted by Christ Church;
• the Oxford Northerners Society – a student society whose aim is to bring together Northern students at the University;