Minsthorpe students attend Explore English taster day

On the 9th March, 7 lucky Year 10 students from Minsthorpe Community College attended the Explore English taster day with University of Leeds and Leeds Arts University. The aim of the day was to give the students a taste of what studying English at university is like.

With the University of Leeds, the students took part in different taster sessions. The first taster session involved analysing a comic book with Jess, a current PhD student at Leeds and comic book enthusiast. Jess explained concepts and terminology associated with comic books and students even had the chance to design their own superhero who tackles issues in today’s world.

The second taster session involved learning about citizen journalism with Shannon, a current MA student at Leeds. Students learned about the pros and cons of citizen journalism and had the chance to write a journalistic piece themselves – one Minsthorpe student wrote a very touching piece about Caroline Flack.

The students also had a tour of the university’s impressive campus, they especially liked the famous ‘wavy bacon’ statue! The campus tour was concluded with a viewing of a flat in student halls which got the students thinking about where they would like to live when they go to university.

The second half of the day was run by Leeds Arts University and began with a tour of their vibrant and modern campus; students were lucky enough to view the Flora Yuknovich exhibition which was on display.

The final taster session of the day was the Leeds Arts University Creative Writing session. This involved learning about the art movement of Dadaism and how creating art can inspire creative writing and the students created artwork out of clippings from magazines.

As well as being a fun day for the students and staff, the trip also taught the students about university life. Amy Burton, Go Higher Progression Officer for Minsthorpe said, “This trip triggered a lot of interesting questions about university life from the students, such as how long you study for and how many hours a week you attend lectures. I think this trip really opened the eyes of students who might never have seen a university campus before as they commented on how different university is to school. Most of the students left the trip saying that they would like to study English at university!”

Amy Burton, Minsthorpe Community College