Intensive summer campus programme for Teenagers
Summer school Bucksmore - St Hilda’s College

Course Content
The syllabus incorporates language study, language for life, project sessions, excursion link lessons and academic skills sessions.
The language study lessons focus on the communicative style of language learning and provide grammar and vocabulary tailored to a student’s ability. Whereas language for life lessons integrate a wider range of topics including learner training, literacy, culture and life skills.
The course aims to:
- Build language skills and confidence gradually through our multi-level syllabus.
- Help students achieve their individual goals in language learning.
- Gain a better understanding of English books, films, songs, the internet and other media.
Academic Skills Sessions
The academic skills sessions give students an introduction to exam techniques and are intended to help students improve the skills of academic reading, writing, listening and speaking.
These sessions take place week and culminate with students taking the Bucksmore Assessment.
The variety of lessons and teaching material provide students with a stimulating and comprehensive learning experience throughout their stay with Bucksmore.
CLIL
CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) refers to teaching subjects such as science, literature and drama to students through a foreign language (English).
At Bucksmore Oxford, students will be given the opportunity to study some of their favourite subjects in English.
This provides added motivation and engagement for students by studying topics directly related to their interests.
Increasingly, CLIL has been adopted and incorporated into English language classrooms and Bucksmore Oxford provides CLIL lessons for 90 minutes each week.
This extension to our general English programme provides greater variety and innovation within the Bucksmore Oxford programme, further increasing student motivation and engagement in the language.
Project Work
Project sessions at Bucksmore Oxford promote group work and co-operation, in order to allow participation across all levels of English.
In previous years students have created ‘Bucksmore TV’, ‘Bucky Gamer Exhibition’ and the ‘Bucksmore yearbook project’.
The aims of project work are to encourage collaboration and communication through the completion of real-world tasks that use English with an authentic purpose. Students receive vocabulary and grammar input in the first part of the project session, and are then placed into groups. Groups are provided with a project guideline which they should follow with the aim of completing by the end of the preparation session. The weekly project culminates in a presentation evening in which groups display and present their work.
Assessment
The Bucksmore Assessment was initially introduced in 2016 after thorough research and analysis of student English language performance.
Uniquely developed by the Bucksmore Academic team to evaluate all abilities in English. It assesses a learner’s skills in reading, writing, speaking and listening and provides a well-rounded assessment of a student’s English ability.
The Bucksmore Assessment provides more relevant and appropriate language so learners are motivated to perform better than other, more adult-focused, exams.
Taken at the end of the course, the Bucksmore Assessment is designed to complement the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference) and to provide learners with a realistic determination of their English ability.
It can be applied against other international English exams such as Cambridge ESOL & IELTS. Students will leave the course with a certificate of recommended English level measured against the CEFR scale.