10 Apr 08

A body is found in Pembroke quad...

Following on from its successful summer school courses, which offer 15-year-olds a chance to taste University life, Oxford University has launched ‘Murder in the Cloisters’, a spring school with a twist.

Around 50 15-year-olds from across the Southeast of England stayed at Pembroke College for three days. But things didn’t remain peaceful for long – just as the students arrived, a body was found on Pembroke quad. The only suspects were a series of six shady characters in college without an alibi, including the Master, his daughter and the cook.

A treasure hunt around Oxford city centre led the Year 10s to a pack of clues, which they then solved throughout the residential in order to figure out the guilty party.

The clues were related to academic sessions in chemistry, physiology and modern languages. Students had to keep their wits about them and use their newfound skills to crack the mystery.

Gareth Hughes, postgraduate student in Syriac Studies, explained: ‘A note in a strange script was found on the body. I was able to identify the writing as Syriac, which is my area of specialism. I spent an hour introducing Syriac to the students, and at the end of the session they were able to decipher the note. I hope this has given them an important clue!’

Dr Piers Nye, University Lecturer in Physiology added: ‘In the session about physiology, the students recorded arterial blood pressure and heart rate. These are the variables that a lie detector might measure. Most people, when they tell a lie, start worrying, and this worry increases the heart rate and the blood pressure. It’s not infallible but it with some people it captures them every time.’ 

Sinead Gallagher, Access Co-ordinator at Oxford University, who organises the event, said: ‘Summer schools often attract more girls than boys, so we wanted to give the residential a theme that would be appealing to boys in particular. Hopefully “Murder in the cloisters” has helped the students to learn about what going to University means: study your sources carefully, learn to gather facts and question them, and draw your conclusion based on firm evidence.’

Safeer and Saad from Chesham Park Community School commented: ‘In assembly one day, we were introduced to summer schools at different universities, and we chose Oxford because it is the university that interests us most.’

Louis from Wilmington Enterprise College in Kent added: 'I definitely want to go to university. I haven’t decided on the course yet but I had great fun at the sessions about chemistry and physiology this morning.'

The spring school is part of the national Aimhigher Summer Schools Project, which is jointly funded by Aimhigher and the European Social Fund. The programme is designed to give students with little or no experience of higher education a taste of what student life is like.

The Oxford University improvisation theatre group 'Oxford Imps' helped with the development of the plot and stageing of the event. They filmed the event and put together a film which can be watched below.