What is the Tripos and why do we have it?

The Tripos is a self-accredited award created exclusively for the Sixth Form at the Royal High School Bath. It is an award unique to the Sixth Form that aims to develop skills and experience outside the classroom environment.

The term Tripos is taken from Cambridge University, who use the term to denote the three achievements necessary to graduate and prepare students for life beyond academic study. This notion is firmly embedded in the Royal High School Tripos with the focus being on experience and development outside the classroom which serves as preparation for university study and future professional success.

The Tripos award consists of three elements:

Curiositas – aims to develop a curiosity and pursuit of knowledge

Civitas – aims to develop a sense of service and commitment to a cause beyond yourself

Conatus – aims to develop a sense of challenge and endeavour to reach beyond their grasp

For students to achieve the Tripos award they must successfully complete all three elements.

We believe that a student’s Sixth Form experience should be about more than just the academic subjects you study. Whilst gaining high grades and academic success are important, they do not prepare you fully for the challenges of university study and the professional workplace.

We want to develop inquisitive young women who are life-long learners and understand that the pursuit of knowledge has inherent value. We want to develop selfless young women who value service and are committed to causes greater than themselves. Finally, we want to develop confident young women who are undaunted in the face of challenge and have the resilience to persevere despite setbacks or failure.

Our belief in these characteristics is why we created the Tripos. We value these traits which is why we want to reward them. The award offers our students the opportunity to pursue and develop in each of these ways but, importantly, rewards them for it.

Our belief is that those who successfully complete the award will have gained new intellectual insight into an area of interest, dedicated to a cause beyond themselves and pushed beyond what they thought they were capable of.