Term dates for the College and University Centre academic year 2024/2025 are now available online.
Academic Academy
If you are curious, inquisitive and enjoy learning, then the Academic Academy is for you. Explore new and interesting ideas that broaden your knowledge and supplement your College studies.
What can I expect?
The Academic Academy is a 30-week programme of lectures and seminars designed to stretch, challenge and provide support for students who want to apply for selective universities. It is taken alongside your full-time programme and only requires a commitment of two hours a week.
The programme is fun and exciting and aims to increase your support applications to most competitive universities. We'll introduce you to new ideas and new ways of looking at the world. Every Wednesday afternoon, you will have a lecture by our own staff and external guests, with previous speakers including a lord, an Oxford professor, a BBC national newsreader and the Director of Experiments at CERN. This is followed by a choice of seminar.
The academy also provides Oxbridge support for any students who wish to apply to Oxford or Cambridge universities.
entry requirements
The Academy is aimed at students who will meet the post-16 national gifted and talented criterion of achieving 58 points in their eight best GCSEs (six A Grades and two A* Grades or better at GCSE).
However, we are aware that sometimes GCSE grades do not reflect your true ability, so this is not a rigid entry requirement. It is more important that you are excited by new ideas and by the opportunity to be stretched intellectually.
For more information, please contact Euan Beattie at euanb@truro-penwith.ac.uk (Truro) or Vanessa Hager on 01736 809118 (Penwith) .
I have really enjoyed going to the Academy. I thought that all the lectures were interesting and informative and I particularly enjoyed the chance to continue learning about subject areas that I didn't choose when applying for my A Levels.
Academic Academy student
