Scholarship

We try to foster a love of learning, thinking and scholarship so that our students thrive not only at school and university, but also later in life. To this end we offer all students a variety of opportunities for intellectual engagement that are both interesting and demanding.

The Lower and Middle School

Wide-ranging weekly meetings

In the Lower School, Years 7 and 8 meet together and discuss such topics as:

• Would you eat a gorilla?
• Free will
• The nature of time

In the Middle School, each year group meets separately. The topics covered are very wide-ranging. The Middle School Scholars' Programme 2024-25.

Year 8 Scholarship examination

In June of Year 8, students can sit a challenging examination either to gain an award or to improve an existing award. The examination tests verbal and non-verbal reasoning and has an essay component,

Essay prizes

In Year 10, there is the new Popper Prize, an inter-school competition, inaugurated in 2022 with the theme of Inequality. This year the theme was Ethics and Artificial Intelligence. (Popper Prize 2025 essay questions).

Within the school, there is the annual Gareth Evans Essay Competition, named after an eminent Old Alleynian philosopher. This is open to all Middle School students. (Gareth Evans Essay Competition 2024 questions).

The Upper School

Enrichment sessions

Enrichment sessions are organised weekly by departments for all students, but are aimed especially at those who wish to apply to Oxbridge and Medical School. The Head of Scholarship organises sessions for subjects, such as Law, not taught at A level.

One-to-one tutorials

One-to-one tutorials are offered to Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences applicants in the Michaelmas term of Year 13. These are in addition to practice interviews.

Independent research

The extended essay and the Extended Project Qualification (EPQ). All Year 12 students either submit an extended essay (2000 words) or do an EPQ, though many students do both. Either way students are required to do an independent piece of research, and write it up as a formal piece of academic work. The best essays and dissertations are published annually, along with other interesting work, in Semantron.

Essay prizes. Students are encouraged to enter the competitions mainly organised by Oxford and Cambridge colleges. There is also the prestigious inter-school essay competition the Erasmus prize. This year, on the theme of The Ethics of Charity, Aidan Leung of Year 11 won 2^nd prize (the Erasmus 2024 essay questions). A new essay competition for Years 11 - 13, the International Friends of Dulwich Essay Prize founded by Aidan, is starting this year.

The Thinkers’ Hub is a digital space for all Upper School students, with information about further reading, online lectures and courses, university essay prizes, as well as collections of articles, links to museums and galleries (see, as an example, Pre-University Reading and Research).