A guide to studying at Earlscliffe
SUMMER BOARDING COURSES
Earlscliffe is an independent sixth form college during the academic year and offers an intimate, highly-personalised environment. It was built in 1870 and recently underwent complete renovation and refurbishment. As well as its traditional subjects throughout the year Earlscliffe offers university preparation courses during the summer, supporting international students aiming to enroll at competitive universities.
Earlscliffe’s academic reputation is frequently higher than most schools with Earlscliffe sixth form achieving outstanding A-level results, which regularly places them in the top echelon of co-educational boarding schools in the south-east of England.
Earlscliffe is proud to be a UNESCO school and is a leading contributor to European collaborative projects with an enriching international environment.
Earlscliffe is part of the Dukes Education Group, who are a family of schools and education organisations based in the UK, assisting greatly in students’ academic potential.
Earlscliffe is based in the resurgent seaside town of Folkestone in the county of Kent, and is located in the desirable West End of the town. Earlscliffe is within easy walking distance of the elegant Leas promenade and the beach, the town centre’s shops and the high-speed train link to central London.
Folkestone has a population of about 45,000 and is connected to the capital by a regular, high-speed (54 minutes direct) train service. The town is situated at the foot of the North Downs, with views of the surrounding countryside and the coast of France, 24 miles (39 km) away.
Earlscliffe is within a few minutes’ walk of the elegant Leas Promenade, which is still virtually no different today from Victorian times. The Leas is Folkestone’s unique clifftop promenade. Designed in the mid 1800′s by Decimus Burton, who also worked on buildings and gardens at London Zoo and Kew Gardens, it includes magnificent buildings, squares and gardens.
For our more inquisitive and curious students, Folkestone’s ‘Creative Quarter’ offers a variety of galleries, cafés, restaurants and antique sellers. Folkestone’s ‘Triennial’ has put the town firmly on the international art and sculpture calendar. In the quaint regenerated streets of Folkestone, you’ll discover cutting-edge art in its unique Creative Quarter, which houses over 100 artistic enterprises within its cobbled centre and pastel-painted studio-galleries and shops.
Folkestone’s town centre offers all the usual high street shops and eateries popular with teenagers, from Primark, TK Maxx and JD Sports right through to coffee shops such as Starbucks and Costa.
The Earlscliffe campus is formed of eight Victorian and Edwardian buildings, all recently renovated to provide high-quality teaching and residential facilities. Earlscliffe is an ‘in-town’ campus of buildings meaning that students can easily walk between classes, meals, accommodation and activities.
Earlscliffe does not use host families. All students live in the school’s own, supervised residences which are located within a few minutes’ walk of both the main building and the school house classrooms. All of the school’s buildings were originally built between 1870 and 1910, with four being late Victorian in style and the other four Edwardian.
Girls and boys live in separate, supervised accommodation. Most rooms are spacious twin or triple rooms and all have en-suite WC and shower. A very small number of single rooms are available. All rooms have Wi-Fi. The accommodation is attractive: modern, light rooms within historic façades.
Meals taken in the college dining room are varied and often international, such as Chinese, Mexican or Indian, but of course not forgetting the occasional British fish and chips! Formal dinners every two weeks give our students a chance to dress up and enjoy a three course meal by candlelight. Any special dietary needs can be catered for, i.e. vegetarian, non-dairy etc. Students are given packed meals on day trips.
This programme is for students looking for an inspirational, ambitious and relevant course which gives them the perfect introduction to the exciting and productive world of business management and administration.
Our experienced and dedicated academic staff introduce the essentials of business management on this intensive two week course.
This course is ideal for committed students looking for a very different kind of summer course, who want to boost their CV and university application by completing this rigorous and challenging programme.
Also, for students considering studying business, finance, management, economics or accounting at A-level, IB or undergraduate level, the Mini-MBA™ provides an intensive and comprehensive introduction. Some work is completed out of class.
Mini-MBA™ students are integrated in the afternoon programme with students on our other Earlscliffe summer courses and the normal sports, cultural activities and excursion programme is offered, including a special visit to the Bank of England Museum.
The University Preparation course is for those aged 16–17+, who will soon be considering applying to universities either in the UK or their own countries. As a member of the Dukes Education family, we are pleased to offer some course units in conjunction with our specialist partner organisations: Oxbridge Applications, the Medic Portal, The Lawyer Portal.
This higher level, skills-based course is designed to focus on all the independent learning skills required of an ambitious undergraduate, and indeed to help some of our students seeking entry to the UK’s best universities.
Our Earlscliffe admissions advisors have many years’ experience in preparing international students for entry into some of the world’s top institutions such as Oxford, Cambridge, Stanford, UCL, LSE, Imperial, Durham and St Andrew’s.
This highly relevant course offers an exciting and thought-provoking mix of theoretical and practical activities designed to encourage responsibility, commitment and purpose in its participants through self-reflection.
Case studies will consist of both global and local initiatives and their interaction with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.
This course drives language development by encouraging its learners to adopt “the values, attitudes and behaviours that support responsible global citizenship” (UNESCO).
Think Global! is designed not only to maximise a student’s language development but to do this through using UNESCO’s ‘Four pillars of learning’: learning to know; learning to do; learning to be and learning to live together.
Are you interested in a future career in journalism or content creation? At Earlscliffe you will harness technical skills in creating video, audio and text output to bring the latest political, cultural and social discussion to a wider audience. If you are interested in enhancing your knowledge on how the news is made and delivered, then you will find Breaking Digital at Earlscliffe a highly instructive and practical course in which you can develop your digital media know-how.
Earlscliffe Summer School students will enjoy full-day trips on Wednesday and Sundays, as well as the opportunity to visit Ashford Designer Outlet or Folkestone on Saturday afternoons.
Every Wednesday students and staff will travel on the high-speed, direct train to London. During the summer we visit some of London’s most famous landmarks and museums, including the London Eye; the Tower of London; the British Museum; the London Dungeons; and the Natural History Museum.
On Sundays students will visit nearby cities and attractions including the world-famous cathedral city of Canterbury, Thorpe Park amusement park, and Leeds Castle.
During excursions, students will have some supervised free time in small groups.
Overall, as well as the best academic preparation and personalised education in small class sizes, students are able to experience an exciting excursion program where they can make new friends and see some top UK landmarks.
We hope our guide to Earlscliffe has got you as excited about the coming summer as we are, and we hope you have a much clearer picture of all the fantastic opportunities on the horizon at Earlscliffe Summer School.
If you would like more information about Earlscliffe or any of our academic subjects, then our dedicated admissions team are always on hand to answer any of your queries and are here to help you every step of the way.
