The story of CampusLink began with a worried parent.
Our founder, Anne Gaze, was concerned for her son who, while thriving in 4 out of the 6 IB subjects and at a school that had no additional resources to support students, she struggled to support her son on the two subjects where he needed it the most. Eventually Anne decided to send her son to full-syllabus revision programmes off-shore. He returned, absolutely euphoric – he’d nailed the subjects! Small classes, great teaching, step-by-step revision of the entire syllabus – it wasn’t rocket science!
Anne evidenced the massive confidence and grade increase when her son arrived home and was resolved that every child in New Zealand deserved the same support. She committed to bring the course template into New Zealand for the October study period of 2011, flying in top IB examiners in from Europe, delivering out of King’s College. Anne’s passion for every students right to an empowering education and to be given the tools for success, lead to the creation of CampusLink.
CampusLink’s core work is a charitable academic intervention programme for Years 11- 13 students (the external exam years).
CampusLink pivots the academic success of over 11,600 annually. Whilst delivering this programme in 2012, it was evident significant numbers of students were able to ‘run’ their classes in, say, Economics and Math, yet were failing past papers – there was a ‘traffic jam’ in their brain.
They were debilitated from imparting their knowledge by writing in the timely and sequential manner exams demand – exams simply did not work for them. They could be brighter than the dux of their school, but they were failing.
These students could articulate the answer, but could not write fast enough / methodically / rationally / sequentially. Fast forward a year and we identified the huge chasm in information and support for these children, their schools and their families.
Anne found Learning Supported children had access to compensatory support only:
- Reader Writer in exams
- Extended time in exams
- Access to computer
- Small group (remedial) support
Qualification of this compensatory exam support was only after financially-able parents funded the $700-900 cost of an Educational Psychologist.
With CampusLink, thousands of students annually receive academic support to pivot their grades.
Anne identified youth-on-youth aggressive intervention as the lifeline for all students under stress and the answer to our nation’s growing chasm of education inequality, by harnessing our greatest educational resource – undergraduates – and marrying them with students in secondary schools.
Since 2009, CampusLink has been providing revision courses and workshops for Cambridge, NCEA and IB Campuses across NZ, assisting thousands of high school students each year.
