The timetable has remained action-packed over the last couple of days, and both cohorts had the opportunity to travel up to the Wohl Reach Out Lab at Imperial College, London. Year 10 visited on Thursday and year 9 on Friday, and both cohorts enjoyed the opportunity to spend time exploring the campus. Imperial is a regular destination for KAN APP trips and they once again put on a fantastic programme of events. Visiting universities is a key element of what we offer our students, as it is very important that they are able to visualise their end goals, and it is great for them to be able to experience first hand what life at university might be like. The imperial students who showed us round proved to be excellent ambassadors for their university and higher education in general, and it was good to hear them promote to our cohorts the importance of balancing work and other commitments in pursuing where you want to be. While we are an academic programme and inspiring our students to fulfil their aspirations and maximise their potential is our priority, the importance of encouraging our young people to become well-rounded with a diverse range of interests is something that cannot and should not be underestimated! The year 10 group took part in a workshop on Malaria which was also excellent, exploring how alterations to the DNA of a mosquito could help overcome the disease, and having the opportunity to carry out their own dissections – interesting stuff!

As the residential draws to a close this morning our students will be presenting work they have completed this week to each other, catching up with mentors for one final time and setting the goals and work they will seek to complete between now and the next time we come together in the autumn. It has been another fantastically successful week at Tonbridge, and we thank them for their kind hospitality, as well as all the teachers, external content providers and our mentors who have allowed the residential to happen. Our fifth cohort have made a flying start to their time on the KAN APP, and it was great to be able to mark the fact our original cohort had successfully completed their time with us last weekend.

The year 11 and year 12 KAN APP cohorts travel to Cambridge for their summer residential tomorrow, and our second programme, United Access in association with United Learning also starts a few days from now – an exciting week ahead!