Professional Relationships with Pate’s

Building Professional Relationships with the UK’s Pate’s Grammar School

The Xiehe Education Group continues to work hard to establish ongoing relationships with highly reputable and innovative schools from around the world. At the end of 2021, through the efforts and support of the Xiehe Education Group, SUIS Qingpu formed a collaborative venture with Pate’s Grammar School in the UK. Pate’s is a top-ranked secondary school in the UK with a long-established record of producing high-achieving students. We are looking forward to benefitting from Pate’s in a variety of ways, which include but are not limited to the following: professional development for our teachers, subject support for our IGCSE and A-Level students, and university admissions support for our Grade 11 and Grade 12 students.

About Pate’s Grammar School

Located in Cheltenham, England

Founded in 1574, Pate’s is a selective co-educational state grammar school known both regionally and nationally in the UK. According to a report from The Spectator, 27 Pate’s students successfully gained enrollment at Oxford and Cambridge in 2020, ranking Pate’s at 6th amongst all British state grammar schools.

Cooperation Starting from Online Counseling Sessions

Face-to-face online counseling sessions

Since the end of April, Mr. Chris Nicholas (Head of Sixth Form), has initiated face-to-face online counseling sessions with several of our G11 students. During the sessions, our students described their intended university selections as well as their current AS subject grades. Mr. Nicholas shared his insights on university applications, how to prepare for them, and other key elements for university enrollment.

Mr. Nicholas then conducted several engaging research activities with students, and pointed out the importance of showcasing super-curricular activities in the application. Towards the end of the sessions, Mr. Nicholas discussed the process that universities go through for selecting students. It is worth mentioning that Mr. Nicholas also gave several in-depth insights focusing on university applications completed by Pate’s School, and clarified the importance of IGCSE and AS Level scores. Interestingly, Oxford University pays more attention to the selection of written entrance examinations, while Cambridge University focuses more on interviewing applicants.

Finally, Mr. Nicholas presented a list of universities, course recommendations, and certain courses that are similar to each student’s target course, and shared several deep insights: First, Oxbridge may value IGCSE results more than AS Level results; second, the admission tests offered by Oxford are more selective with fewer applicants shortlisted for interviews. This contrasts with Cambridge, which tends to invite more applicants to interviews. In a word, Mr. Nicholas reinforced the importance of reviewing the application process for each university, and emphasized that universities have different procedures for better understanding each candidate.

Pate’s will continue to provide our students with more university guidance and support, such as individual counselling sessions, group counselling sessions, Personal Statement workshops, and mock interviews – there is no doubt that our students will greatly benefit from Pate’s outstanding expertise and services.

We look forward to even more Pate’s-SUIS Qingpu joint programs being launched in the future, so please stay tuned!