How I helped 800 pupils get in to Oxbridge
Joe Seddon, 25, used the last £200 from his loan to set up a network for disadvantaged teenagers
Joe Seddon, punting with friends on the Cam, has set up a scheme with a better success rate than many top private schools
CHRIS RADBURN FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
Twenty-five years old, grammar school-educated and brought up by a single mother in Morley, West Yorkshire, Joe Seddon is fully qualified to be Britain’s unofficial social mobility tsar.
Having made it to Oxford University (graduating with a first-class degree in philosophy, politics and economics — PPE), he had £200 left over from his student loan. The choice was whether to spend it on “a night out with mates in Leeds, or put it to good use”. He chose the latter.
Seddon set up a social enterprise, Zero Gravity, which has helped to get nearly 800 state school students into Oxford and Cambridge since 2018. All come from some of the poorest families and toughest areas in the country.
Seddon, founder of Zero Gravity, was shocked by the extreme wealth of some fellow students at the University of Oxford
CHRIS RADBURN FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
It was his own experience at Mansfield
