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The John Locke Junior Summer School is only for exceptional students. If you have not yet turned sixteen, but you are ready for something more advanced than you are experiencing at school, this could be exactly what you need.
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Similar to our Foundation Certificate it is based on our signature Core Curriculum, but a little bit shorter and adapted for students who are fifteen years old or younger. Unlike the typical middle school or high school curriculum, this course is not about mastering facts or learning how to pass exams. Instead it is about introducing you to exciting new ideas, challenging you with thought-provoking claims and unfamiliar arguments, and helping you acquire skills that will serve you for many years to come. Our Core Curriculum focuses on contestable concepts: ideas or questions about which two intelligent and well-informed people might have very different opinions. You won’t be able to look up the answers in a book; you’ll need to work it out for yourself, thinking through what you read, and what you hear from our faculty and your fellow students during lectures, precepts and informal discussions.
The student accommodation and most of the summer school activities take place at Radley College, which was founded in 1847 by William Sewell, sub-Rector of Exeter College, Oxford. Accommodation is in single rooms with shared bathroom facilities. Male and female students will stay in different buildings. Students will also be living with people of the same age. Meals are served in the college dining hall (breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner), except when we provide a picnic lunch on the punting day and when we are hosted by an Oxford College. Free WiFi. Personal laundry service once during your stay. Access to campus sports facilities (swimming pool, athletics track and astro turf pitch).
If you plan to take a train from Oxford station, we can walk you to the station and make sure you know at which platform to meet the train.
We are offering a shuttle service from/to Heathrow airport at an extra charge.
We advise you to purchase travel insurance.
15 and under
Every overseas student must have a valid passport to enter the United Kingdom. For attending a short course in the UK, the Standard Visitor Visa is normally the one you would need, but it is your responsibility to determine whether you need a visa and, if so, what kind of visa you need and how to apply for it. We can provide individual support on request for those who will need a visa.
Selective Entry
Each year we receive around three applications per place. Our Dean of Admissions then makes a decision based on the two components of the selection process, below:
Part I: Written Application
You should submit a written application via our website. This gives you the opportunity to show us that you are bright, curious, open-minded and ambitious.
Your school grades should be included in your application. In recent years the median student admitted to our summer schools has earned, or is predicted to earn, the highest possible grades in nine or ten subjects at GCSE, or a GPA in the top decile of students.
Your academic record, though, is one of the least important things about your application, and every year we accept several students whose grades do not reflect their potential, so please use the written application to tell us about why you would be great for our course, and why our course would be great for you.
Part II: Admissions Interview
At least two-thirds of all candidates are then invited to interview with our Academic Dean or one of our other senior faculty members. This interview normally takes place at your school or online, via Zoom, and should take 20 to 25 minutes. It is intended to test how you listen, how you think, and how you formulate and present arguments. A successful candidate will demonstrate precision of thought, intellectual flexibility, responsiveness to new information, and logical discipline. We hope you will find the interview exciting, as this is a good indication that you will enjoy our courses.
Deadline
APPLICATIONS FOR SUMMER SCHOOL 2023 ARE NOW CLOSED.
You can now pre-register for our 2024 summer schools.
Official applications will open on Wednesday, 1 November 2023.
Financial Aid
One in five students at the John Locke Institute summer schools will receive some form of financial support from a philanthropic trust created by the Institute.
If we encounter a student of unusually high ability, or a student who will significantly add to the intellectual, social or cultural diversity of our community, we will invite that student to submit an application for a merit-based scholarship. This will involve writing an essay of 1500 - 2000 words and sometimes an additional interview, this time with our Director. These scholarships are worth £500.
For scholarship recipients from low-income families, this award can be topped up by a means-tested bursary. Typically this would cover a minority of the fees, but in rare circumstances this can cover the entire cost of attending the summer school, including a contribution to travel expenses.
Before submitting a financial aid application, candidates must first be accepted to one of our courses.
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