Cherwell College Oxford

Our student Freddie arrived doubting he was any good at the subject. He left with the highest mark in the world.

One year later Frederick has received an Outstanding Cambridge Learner Award for achieving the highest mark in the world in Cambridge International A Level History in the June 2025 exams — the first Cherwell candidate to do so in the subject.

What makes it remarkable is not the mark. It is where he started.

He came to us from a highly privileged school having lost confidence in his own ability, and with no clear idea of what he wanted to do. Rather than fitting him into an existing syllabus, we asked which areas of History genuinely interested him and which examination board would let those interests develop. That is how the Cambridge International route was chosen.

The teaching was built on dialogue rather than delivery: question, discuss, investigate. The mentoring around it was built on rebuilding what he had lost.

By his final months he had decided on law, and chose UCL. Then he came back to speak to our graduating Year 13 students about how it happened.

The mark is the outcome. The process behind it is the point.

Read the full story on our website.
https://www.cherwell-college.co.uk/stories/success-stories-of-students-in-college/from-demotivated-to-top-in-the-world-freddies-cambridge-a-level-history-story

Congratulations to everyone collecting their results today!

Whatever this morning brought, there is a next step — and often more options than it feels like right now.

Our guide sets out what each outcome means and what to do about it: how to handle a near miss on your firm offer, how Clearing actually works, and the review of marking deadlines that most families never hear about until it's too late.

Read it here: https://www.cherwell-college.co.uk/stories/articles/results-day-2026-what-your-options-really-are

And if you'd rather talk it through with a person, our Admissions Team is on +44 (0) 1865 242670 until 6pm today.

Results day is on Thursday 13 August, with GCSE results following on 20 August. We have put together a guide for students and parents on what actually happens, and what each outcome means.

A few things it covers that families often do not know:
Your school gives you your grades; UCAS gives you your application status. They are separate systems, and neither tells you what the other says.

The standard deadline is 24 September. After that, reviews are unavailable regardless of circumstances.

The full guide is here: https://www.cherwell-college.co.uk/stories/articles/results-day-2026-what-your-options-really-are

If you would like to talk anything through, our Admissions Team is on +44 (0) 1865 242670.

As part of Cherwell’s extra-curricular programme, students have been exploring the theme of Life Before AI through a visual art project entitled School of Athens at Cherwell.👏🎨

The painting presents a striking horizontal gradient: vivid colour on one side, representing the pre-digital world through objects such as a gramophone, hourglass, rubber duck, book and watch, gradually fading into grey at the other end, where all colour is drawn into a smartphone📱- a visual metaphor for the transition into the AI era.

📜Students drew a powerful parallel with the Bayeux Tapestry. Both works can be read as sequential visual records created at the threshold of a civilisational shift. The Bayeux Tapestry documented 1066. This painting documents now.

🏛️With the Bayeux Tapestry due to return to the UK for display at the British Museum from September 2026, our students’ work feels especially timely: a reminder that art has always helped societies understand moments of transformation, uncertainty and change.

💡At Cherwell, we encourage students not only to observe the world around them, but to question it, interpret it and respond creatively.

British Museum

Join us tomorrow for a heating discussion of the recent current affairs’ development 🙌

At our forthcoming Friday’s session on critical thinking as part of Cherwell current affairs club

What resignation of defence secretary reveals amidst the rising threats for the UK and allies in war zones?

What to expect next?

Compulsory conscription? An answer to the unemployment of NEETs

Defence R&D can generate substantial spillovers into the wider economy, with some estimates suggesting returns approaching twice the initial investment over time.

How can military technologies spill over into everyday life?

From Economics Observatory

“The wide-reaching effects of defence innovation often come from the nature of the technologies themselves: they tend to be dual-use, with both military and civilian applications.
GPS began as a military navigation system. Today it is essential to logistics, precision farming and transport. Similarly, the internet was originally developed by DARPA, the US defence research agency. It is now the backbone of the global economy. Drones were first used in combat settings, but are now used for everything from parcel delivery, to agriculture, to emergency response. Nuclear fission started with the Manhattan Project during World War 2, leading to the creation of the atomic bomb and the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Today nuclear energy is a major source of electricity around the world for civilian uses.
These technologies have had profound effects well beyond their original purpose. But it’s important not to turn the desirable goal of dual-use technology into an obsession: as the American experience shows, most defence innovations only entered everyday life after achieving their initial military goals”.







Photo credit to Oleh Pavliuchenkov
Maestro