Target age range: 12-14

Is our young generation of learners equipped to face the challenges of an ever-changing world? Our Foundation Year Boot Camp introduces students to essential problem-solving skills, supported by the resource of Akademeia’s talented faculty and our multidisciplinary approach to education. Providing an experience removed from the ‘standardised education’ model, this programme will nurture life skills and individual growth through student-led investigations in a collaborative and empowering workspace.

Tailored for dynamic learners between the ages of 12 and 14, the AHS Boot Camp creates opportunities to explore the potential of our lives, our societies, and the natural world in a holistic week-long experience. This programme views each academic discipline as a toolbox that can be drawn upon to provide multidisciplinary solutions to real-world problems. Learners will be tasked to address an ecological challenge of their choosing, considering its complexity at local, regional, and international dimensions. They will lead their own research investigations with the full support of Akademeia’s resources and multifaceted faculty, expressing their ideas through a creative individual project of their own design. This program is an excellent introduction to the exceptional learning ecosystem provided by our school.

Target age range: 12-14

Our practical Natural Sciences Summer School will introduce students to a wide range of fascinating, lab-based practical experiments.  On this course, students will:

• Have the chance to play at being a forensic scientist, and profile and compare between DNA samples using gel electrophoresis.
• Synthesise reusable, enzymatic beads, each with a powerful concentration of enzymes that can be used to break down important polymers. The beads themselves are a great deal of fun to make.
• Discover the hidden, beautiful pigments present in an ordinary leaf, responsible for one of the most important biochemical reactions known to man, photosynthesis. Participants will get the opportunity to isolate these pigments and expose them using chromatography.
• Be introduced to a fascinating method called titration. Before a plant can thrive as an independent, self-sufficient, autotrophic, photosynthesizing organism that sustains all other creatures, it takes the form of a seed that must rely on respiration only. One of the products of respiration, carbon dioxide, can be used as an indicator of how intense the respiration process is in different conditions. Titration is the tool that will allow us to measure the amount of carbon dioxide.
• Learn and practice basic separation methods. Students will have a chance to apply them in extraction of chemical compounds from biological materials, investigate properties of obtained substances, and get a deeper insight into the chemistry hidden in the surrounding world.
• Learn about resonances in mechanical and electrical circuits. Participants will have a chance to independently conduct multiple experiments related to resonance phenomena.

Making full use of the school’s modern laboratories, and guided by our own faculty of teachers, this course promises to introduce participants to some of the many extraordinary applications of Natural Science.

Target age range: 14-16

Our Mathematics Summer School develops students’ abilities in the subject responsible for some of civilization’s most prized achievements. Through a series of lessons, workshops and projects with our highly qualified faculty staff, participants will be equipped with both theoretical and practical skills in various mathematical topics.

The dual focus of the course will be balanced between developing fundamental skills and solving problems that go beyond the core syllabus. Over the course of the week, we aim to help students improve in topics necessary on every level (like algebraic manipulation, quadratics, elements of basic geometry, logarithms and exponentials). However, our goal is also to give students something more, to broaden their perspectives and reveal to them interesting and practical applications of mathematics. We emphasise an individual approach, with participants working in small groups and so allowing us to modify the programme according to students’ particular skills and knowledge.

This course is ideal for both students who want to fill in any gaps in knowledge, as well as for the most talented and passionate young mathematicians seeking to develop their skills and experience Akademeia’s first class teaching standards for the first time.

Target age range: 14-16

The contemporary world is more digital than ever. Electoral campaigns, trade, forms of cultural production, everyday life, and even war all unfold with significant help from advanced technologies. However, the consequences of the digital advancement for the future of our planet are far from certain. Who benefits and who loses out on the digitalisation of political, economic, social, cultural and even environmental systems? Will these processes result in a more just, equal and prosperous future? Finally, are the technologies, platforms and algorithms being developed set to improve, or simply reshape, our world?

These are just some of the questions that will be tackled in this year’s Social Sciences Summer School, where we will introduce students to recent developments in social-scientific research on the digital world. Through a series of interactive seminars, workshops and debates, students as members of the young generation of future global leaders will be asked to think through multiple facets of the digital world. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this course is the ideal choice for students interested in Sociology, Economics, Politics, Psychology or Geography, and for all those who wish to get to grips with the ramifications of our digital future.