Heath Park Oxford University Student Wins Prestigious Book Scholarship

We were delighted to welcome back one of the most successful Year 13 students of last year back to Heath Park this week, in order to present her with an outstanding reward for her efforts.

Leah Cooper-Collins achieved an A* and three As at A-Level last year, securing her a place to read English at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford University. Overcoming a number of academic and personal challenges during her time at Heath Park, Leah showed determination, perseverance and no little academic ability in achieving her phenomenal success, and fully deserves her place at one of the most highly-regarded universities in the world.

Heath Park was delighted to make a contribution to Leah’s ongoing success with the award of a book token scholarship from the Reading List Foundation, which the school could choose to give to any student who studied with us last year. Though there were – and are – many other great candidates, ultimately the decision to award this to Leah in recognition of her success was an easy one to make. The award gives a financial contribution towards study materials this year, allowing us to continue to support Leah as she moves on to her next success.

This week saw Leah return to Heath Park for the first time since beginning her studies at Oxford, and she was greeted by Mrs Holloway, Mr Selkirk and Mrs Stroud, as well as Mr Blower, who had the pleasure of teaching Leah during her A Level English course. It was incredibly exciting to hear all about Leah’s experiences at Oxford to date, with her tales of both the challenges and joys of studying at such a prestigious establishment filling us all with immense pride.

One of Heath Park’s Head Boys of 2017-18, Jagtar Chohan, also achieved a place at Oxford University. He is now studying at Hertford College, following in the footsteps of our first successful Oxbridge applicant in a number of years, Danny Williams-Ruiz, who secured a place at Cambridge University in 2017.

All three students were members of Heath Park’s Excellence Academy, and join a great and growing number of former Heath Park students studying at the top universities in the country, such as Manchester, Nottingham, Warwick, Durham, Birmingham, UCL and ICL, a culture of success of which we are immensely proud.

Everyone at Heath Park would like to wish every success to all of our former students at university around the country again, and to express our heartfelt congratulations and pride at Leah’s achievements.