Head’s Letters

Friday 29 March 2019

Dear Parents

The warm spring weather has accompanied us to the end of another fabulous term at Abingdon Prep. As I watched the photos flick round on our Lent Term montage this morning (available on the website), it reminded me of just how many different activities have taken place this term across all the year groups. If I had to pick a few highlights they would certainly be the snow day in school, the penguins and both of the brilliant productions.

Despite it being the final week of term, the pace has not diminished. ‘Animal Farm’, our senior section production, took place on Thursday evening and was a delight to watch. The boys involved should be very proud of their performances and the hard work that they have been putting into it in the lead up.

Reception visited Cotswold Farm Park on Monday and came back full of excitement and tales of the animals they had seen. They, alongside Year 1 and 2, also took part in a lovely Easter Bonnet parade this week in front of the whole school showing off their creative sides.

Years 2, 4 and 6 had a spectacular architecture workshop on Tuesday where Year 6 created Viking boat structures from bamboo and elastic bands, Year 4 created bridges from similar materials and Year 2 created a range of tetrahedron shapes. The boys really enjoyed the creative problem solving elements of these workshops and will certainly have learnt a great deal from them.

The Science Week poster competition awards were given out too this week and I was lucky enough to be asked to adjudicate – a tough job with so many brilliant entries on the theme of journeys. The overall winner came from Year 4 and showed a stunning journey of an arctic tern migration.

The Easter Eggstravaganza on Saturday last week was a great success and the sunshine allowed for a lovely Easter egg hunt in the Pre-Prep play area to round off the event. The Easter Bunny was kind enough to join us despite being such a busy time of year. I was lucky and found a few stray eggs myself this year!

Dragon have managed to earn themselves a home clothes day next term by winning the house merit cup and as a school we managed to raise £412 for our Dragon House charity – ‘The Friends of Della and Don’. They will be putting the money towards part funding a teacher at the school they have set up in an area still struggling to recover from the tragic tsunami of 2004. Thank you to all the boys and parents who have kindly made Sri Lankan styles cakes and pastries which sold so well. This followed on from some wonderful ‘Bake Off’ cakes which certainly went down well and I am very much looking forward to the finals of the ‘Abingdon Prep Bake Off’ next term.

Our Easter Service today will round off the term and hopefully allow for a few moments of quiet reflection before we all enjoy the holiday break. I am personally looking forward to venturing down to the Gower Peninsula for a few days to walk with my family on the stunning beaches and beautiful coastline. If the weather allows, I will also be starting my cricket season too with a couple of pre-season matches. I hope that you all have a restful and enjoyable holidays, whether that is skiing in the Alps, jetting off somewhere exotic, pottering off to the South West or simply enjoying some family time at home. Fingers crossed for some more warm spring weather.

Best wishes and Happy Easter!

Craig

Friday 22 March 2019

Dear Parents

To start the week, a number of boys sat their Associated Board Music exams. I know that this is always a nerve wracking affair but the boys had been practising hard and I am sure they will have done themselves proud. I am always delighted to hear the boys play their instruments and slightly jealous of the talent they possess!

On Tuesday, our whole school photograph took place outside the front of Josca’s House this week. It really is quite a feat for the photographers to organise 261 boys on the scaffolding to get such a lovely image.

On Wednesday, four of our Year 8 boys joined 20 other schools from Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire for a day of Chemistry in the Salters Chemistry challenge at Oxford University. The boys took part in two challenges and were awarded first prize in the ‘University Challenge’ seeing them race against the clock to react different concentrations of Sulphuric Acid with Magnesium ribbon. The boys had a great day out and came back buzzing about the chemistry they had undertaken.

After some excellent results and performances from our A teams at Cokethorpe on Saturday, matches continued this week with our seniors playing football against Abingdon School. A late winning goal for the U13As capped a fine season for them. 25 boys from the senior section went across to St Edward's to play New College at hockey and our mixed U12/13 team came away with a very impressive 1-1 draw. Our U10s were also in action and our A team completed their second consecutive unbeaten season – a great achievement. St Hugh’s were the opposition for our U9A, B and C teams this week and they all played extremely well, ending with two wins and a draw.

The British Biathlon championships took place last Sunday where all our teams and individual competitors can be very proud of their performances. Our U9s raced incredibly well, leading them to finish 2nd in this national competition – a superb performance.

It was lovely to see a number of you at Coffee and Catch up this morning. I always enjoy chatting with parents and hearing your thoughts on how the boys are doing, and of course about the upcoming holidays!

The Pre-Prep Spring Celebration took place this afternoon and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the boys showcase some of their work and sing the songs that they have been learning. It is always a lovely way to reflect on the brilliant things that the boys have been working on over the course of the term.

Tomorrow, the Easter Eggstravaganza takes place alongside a full rehearsal for the senior production of ‘Animal Farm’. We are hoping for a flying visit from the Easter Bunny too! This is a busy weekend which leads us into the final week of term.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend and enjoy the warmer spring weather.

Best wishes

Craig

Friday 15 March 2019

Dear Parents

After the triumph of the penguin visit last week, we have this week received delivery of six ducklings into the Year 1 classroom. They have all hatched successfully and the gorgeous fluffy yellow bundles are growing beautifully and are certainly the star attraction down in Pre-Prep. The boys have named them all and are taking great care of them.

This week has seen numerous trips take place across a range of year groups. Year 1 started the week with a fantastic visit to Hill End where they got fully stuck into some outdoor learning and furthered their forest school skills. They were certainly very excited to tell me about the things they had learned whilst there. Year 2 visited Warwick Castle (a quite breathtaking place and well worth a visit if you have never been) and enjoyed finding out about medieval life, especially the jousting and weaponry used at the time. Year 5 are currently out at the Natural History Museum and Pitt Rivers in Oxford, learning about a real cross curricular set of scientific and historical information. 8R have been invited to a leadership skills workshop with a range of guest speakers and many other local preps too and the boys were certainly looking forward to a very interesting set of talks. As you can probably see, it has been a great week for trips.

Science Week has been taking place too, with a range of different activities (hence the ducklings) and Helen and Rebecca gave a fascinating assembly, with some amazing video footage of the Tacoma Bridge collapse in 1940, which certainly got the boys full attention as they saw how a lack of scientific understanding had led to such an incredible collapse – do google the footage of this if you have never seen it before.

Another absolute highlight this week has been the House Music Festival. Congratulations should be given to all the boys who auditioned and the standard in both the junior and senior events was quite superb. We are truly spoilt with the number of talented musicians we have at Abingdon Prep and the enjoyment displayed by the participants was great to witness.

Last Sunday 12 boys represented Abingdon Prep at the National Cross-Country Championships at Malvern College. All of the boys ran brilliantly despite the strong winds and difficult terrain and our U13 team came 3rd with our U11 team coming 7th. There were over 200 runners in each event from 46 schools so these were great results. Quinn (Year 8) is now national champion having won the U13 race with a stunning performance.

This week saw football and hockey matches against Pinewood, Cothill and Chandlings, and there were some very strong results for our B, C and D teams. Matches continue at Cokethorpe tomorrow morning and the British Biathlon Finals take place on Sunday at Crystal Palace, so it is a busy weekend of sport for many of our boys.

All of our scholarship results have now come in and I would like to thank all of the boys and the staff for their efforts in preparing for them. It is a huge commitment for the boys to undertake. This year we have managed to achieve 17 awards across all of the different areas of the curriculum.

Thank you to our fabulous JPA representatives who are running the Scalextric Night tonight. I am very much looking forward to dusting off my Scalextric skills from 30 years ago and seeing how the world of miniature car racing has changed. I am not sure I will be much competition for the boys, who, judging by last year, have some amazing skills around the tracks!

I hope you all have a great weekend and I hope to see some of you this evening at Scalextrics or on the touchline tomorrow.

Best wishes

Craig

Friday 8 March 2019

Dear Parents

What a busy week it has been. I cannot tell you how excited I was on Monday knowing that I would get to meet a couple of penguins at close quarters. Two Dots and Tick were the stars of the show (quite literally as they have been in a number of films) and our boys in Reception, Year 1, 2 and 3 all got to meet them and learn about the lives of Humboldt penguins. The two penguins were clearly fascinated with the children, almost as much as the children were fascinated with them. They got to see them splash around in their pool and be fed, whilst waddling round their enclosure. It was an incredible learning experience for the boys and certainly gave them an appreciation of the beauty and intelligence of these creatures.

World Book Day took place yesterday and I do hope that you have seen some of the photos of the boys’ in costume on the website. A huge amount of effort had clearly gone into creating the costumes of historical characters and it is at this point that I should certainly thank the parents who had been helping out with the brilliant creations. My personal favourite was Margaret Thatcher, whose clothing, jewellery and general mannerisms had all been recreated with incredible accuracy. I am less certain about my fake beard’s authenticity in my homage to W.G. Grace!

This led into our Year 7 Victorian Waxworks Exhibition. This was a first for Abingdon Prep where the boys had been researching key Victorian characters that they then brought to life when a button was pressed. The ‘characters’ then explained to you why they should not be melted down because of how much they had contributed to society and been able to change the world for the better. We had Disraeli, Fry, Cook, Lister and Babbage to name but a few. The boys presented their achievements with genuine knowledge and passion and it was a pleasure to see them taking on these personas and sharing their knowledge of Victorian achievements, linking closely to their work in English lessons this term.

All of our football matches this week were against Moulsford and our boys can be very proud of their endeavours on the pitch, with some notable victories in the Senior Section and strong results in other areas too. The boys have certainly improved their skills dramatically this term. On the hockey pitch, all the boys in Year 6 represented us in some very closely fought matches, with a 1-0 victory for the U11 A team being a particular highlight. More importantly, the boys all enjoyed the chance to play a different sport against another school.

Our busy week continues into the weekend with another Saturday Art workshop, this time specialising in painting, and the National Cross Country championships taking place at Malvern College on Sunday. I am looking forward to seeing our boys represent Abingdon Prep at this event, especially after our own inter house races last week and the Oratory School’s Greyhound run yesterday where our boys acquitted themselves very well.

The scholarship season has now ended and I would like to congratulate all of our boys who have worked so hard in their different respective fields to sit these exams. They are all very talented young men.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing some of you in the Malvern Hills on Sunday.

Best wishes

Craig

Friday 1 March 2019

Dear Parents

I hope you all had a lovely half term and were able to enjoy the unseasonably warm weather which has continued into this week.

On Tuesday we had our Spring Term Open Morning. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our brilliant Year 7 tour guides and our two Year 8 boys who each gave a speech to the prospective parents. The boys continue to be the very best selling point for Abingdon Prep.

In our football matches this week we played a mixture of games against Christ Church Cathedral and Bruern Abbey. Our senior teams came away with some very strong wins whilst our U10s and U11s had some very close games with an even mix of wins and losses. The U8s and U9s showed what they are really capable of with some excellent performances leading to a number of good wins. Good luck to our senior teams in action against the Dragon this Saturday and also to our swimmers who will be taking on the strongest swimmers in the county at the IAPS regional qualifiers.

On Thursday, Paul Gooding, Head of Wellbeing at Abingdon School gave all of the boys an assembly on resilience, encouraging them to think upwards, think forwards, think outwards. This is such an important message for our boys to hear and hopefully put into action in their everyday lives, both at school and at home.

This morning, the boys in Unicorn enjoyed their home clothes day in recognition of winning the House merit cup for the first half of term. It was a very close run affair with just 15 merits separating Dragon House in second place.

This afternoon sees the running of our annual inter-house cross country event for all of the boys. There has been much excitement and anticipation all day, and a little trepidation too for some of the boys who are running it for the first time. I know our Reception boys are really looking forward to competing in their first whole school sporting event. The races are always hotly contested and brilliantly supported by the onlookers. Encouraging every boy around the course is a huge part of the event and always brings out the house spirit.

Have a good weekend.

Best wishes

Craig

Friday 15 February 2019

Dear Parents

As I made my way in to school this morning in the sunshine, I was reflecting on what a super first half of term we have had. Of course, incredibly busy but I would not want it any other way. As this half term comes to an end, I could not have been prouder of the Abingdon Prep boys after the Junior Section’s quite amazing production, ‘Dragon Days’, which they performed to parents last night. The standard of singing and acting was amazing for boys who are only 7, 8 or 9 years old and their delivery of lines, alongside comic timing made for a quite brilliant evening. The boys should be very proud of themselves.

On Tuesday we sent a large group of boys from Years 3-6 to the Chandlings cross-country event where there were over 500 pupils competing. There were some very creditable individual and team performances and I know Ashley was delighted with the effort that all the boys put in.

Wednesday saw a range of U10 and U11 teams take on Christ Church with the U10s coming away with some very impressive wins. Our senior boys took on Cokethorpe after school on Thursday and played some of the highest quality football, with strong wins for our U13 A, B and U12 B teams whilst our U12 As went down 5-4 in a thrilling encounter.

Our Year 8s continue to be busy both inside and outside of the classroom with Music and Sports scholarships undertaken at Abingdon School this week. I look forward to sharing news of our hoped for successes in the coming weeks.

Please could I ask that you take a few moments at half term to complete our website survey. Your feedback is always welcomed to help continue to improve our methods of communication and giving information about the school to current and prospective parents alike. Please follow this link.

I hope that you will all have a restful and enjoyable half term. After a few very early starts with Quinn this week I am certainly looking forward to relaxing at home and enjoying this lovely February sunshine.

Best wishes

Craig

Friday 8 February 2019

Dear Parents

After the snow of last Friday, it has been good to get back to our normal wet and windy February weather! It has been a very busy week for all of the year groups and I thoroughly enjoyed popping into lessons this week to see how the boys were getting on. I was particularly impressed with some of the detailed explanations of relief rainfall and the rain shadow given to me by Year 6, following on from some impressive number work in Reception.

Pre-Prep have been busily working towards achieving their individual targets and I was able to present to many of them their launch flames (target achieved) for their rocket. Year 1 took it a step further and even built a rocket this week with cockpits and control panels all fully formed. It was great to learn about the way they had acted as a team to pull it all together and the time lapse images of this were a hit with all.

In hymn practice this week, Charlie performed a beautiful rendition of Walking in the Air, by Howard Blake, whilst playing the piano too. It is great to see the musicality of so many of our boys coming through, alongside their passion for it. Musically it has been a busy few weeks with eight of our Year 8 boys sitting for music scholarships, a culmination of all their hard work practising and performing over many years. Scholarship season has well and truly begun.

On Tuesday, three of our Year 6 boys represented APS at Oratory’s ‘Let’s Debate’ competition where they produced incredibly well received speeches about a range of topics from corporal punishment to the banning of all homework! Public speaking is never easy and it is lovely to witness the confidence with which so many of our boys are blessed when it comes to standing in front of an audience.

On the sports field our Year 5 and 6s had their first hockey matches of term, with a visit to the Dragon on Monday and the In2Hockey county tournament today for the U11s. The U10s performed admirably in their first ever matches and clearly enjoyed the opportunity to play a new sport against another school.

On the football pitch the boys took on Oratory Prep in Years 5 to 8 and yet again we had some terrific performances from all year groups. The highlight was a fantastic 1-0 victory to our U13As, who had never beaten OPS before on the football pitch and both coaches were waxing lyrical about the incredible standard of football produced by both teams.

The Junior Section has been busily rehearsing all week in the lead up to ‘Dragon Days’ next Thursday. I think the audience will be in for a treat having heard some of the songs being sung in rehearsals. I look forward to seeing many of you at the show.

I hope you all have a great weekend and steer clear from the multitude of coughs and colds that seem to be doing the rounds at the moment.

Best wishes

Craig

Monday 4 February 2019

Dear Parents

Apologies for the delayed letter this week. Friday was a little different with all the beautiful snow. For those that were able to make it in, we had a lovely day with a combination of academic lessons, swimming, PE and time to play in the snow. Hopefully some pictures of the boys and their snowmen might make it onto the website in the next few days. It certainly brought back a few very happy childhood memories of snow days I had experienced at school.

Prior to the snow on Friday, the boys had been busy with a range of activities. On Thursday, Reception, along with Years 1, 2 and 3 participated in Chinese Dance workshops. It was lovely to watch the boys perform their routines with parasols and fans, being gracefully guided by the dance teacher. The boys really entered into the spirit of the dance and produced some delightful shapes and patterns with their props. They certainly seemed to enjoy the experience and learnt a little more about Chinese culture.

Drama has been taking centre stage in our junior section this week as they have been busily rehearsing for their production, ‘Dragon Days’. If these early rehearsals are anything to go by, the performance in a fortnight should be well worth a watch.

A range of matches took place this week with our U11s and U10s taking on St Hugh’s, whilst our U8s and U9s played against Oratory Prep (and Claire’s Court for the U9s). The U8s and U9s played some lovely football in the bitter cold with the highlight being a 4-3 win for the U8C team. The U11 teams won two and lost two whilst our four U10 teams all came away with victories. Our 13A and B teams enjoyed impressive wins against Oratory School on the football pitch whilst the U13 and U12 hockey teams played their first fixtures against Cothill, with the 13s losing and the 12s winning. Despite the cold conditions, it was great to have so many boys out on the pitches representing Abingdon Prep so well.

Sadly, the Saturday ‘Painting Masterclass’ Art Workshop had to be postponed due to the weather. The plans sounded very exciting with a scientific methodology in place using pipette painting as just one of the techniques being introduced.

The weather also put paid to our JPA Quiz night on Friday. At least this should give the staff team a little more time to swat up on their general knowledge before we can reschedule it.

I hope you all had a lovely weekend and perhaps some of you even got to use those toboggans tucked away in the corner of the garage. Quinn was certainly transfixed by this whole new experience of snow as I pulled him around on our newly purchased sled!

Best wishes

Craig

Friday 25 January 2019

Dear Parents

Winter seems to have finally bitten this week with frozen ground and snow and ice taking hold. I must admit to some nervousness as the snowflakes fell more heavily and seemed to get larger on Tuesday afternoon with our inspection due the next day. Fortunately all the staff and pupils were able to make it into school on Wednesday!

I wanted to start my letter this week by thanking Tommy in Year 7 for his brilliant assembly about HMS Triumph’s disappearance in WW2 and his participation in the HMS Triumph Association. The boys were riveted listening to the story of his great-great-uncle’s missing submarine and the association’s role in tracking down members of the crew’s family today to celebrate and honour those brave men.

We have welcomed two ISI inspectors to APS this week and undertaken our compliance inspection. I will be able to share their findings with you all once they are formally released to us. This process is likely to take up to 6 weeks. It was a lovely opportunity to share so much of what we do in school with educational professionals.

On the football pitch this week all of our Year 5 and 6 boys played in matches against Pinewood and despite the freezing conditions, were able to play some very closely contested matches. Our U11 groups managed two wins, one draw and one loss whilst our 10s finished with one win, one draw and two losses. On Tuesday some very intrepid cross country runners took on the snow and freezing temperatures to compete in the first cross country event of the term. An impressive 2nd place team finish was achieved with APS boys coming home individually in 1st, 3rd and 5th places.

Today has seen a number of boys sit their LAMDA exams which they have all been working so hard towards. I look forward to seeing some more excellent results when they come in.

Pre-Prep have also had a very interesting day today with a visit from the Planetarium. They learnt about star gazing and the different constellations, they found out that a number of planets were currently visible to us and they also discussed the possibilities of alien life forms. What an exciting day at school this was!

The first concert platform is taking place this evening after school and I know that many or our boys sitting music scholarships later in the term will be performing, so it will undoubtedly be a wonderful occasion and a lovely way to finish off the week.

Our Annual Quiz Night organised by the JPA is scheduled for next Friday, but we are currently a little light on numbers, so please can I encourage you to sign up and join us for a very enjoyable evening, with quiz master Rob.

I hope you all have a good weekend and that the cold temperatures do not stop you from getting out and about.

Best wishes

Craig

Friday 18 January 2019

Dear Parents

I hope you have all had a good week despite the cold weather and the boys are certainly very well settled back into the routines of school life.

Mike Windsor and I enjoyed popping in to see some lessons yesterday morning and it was refreshing to see the boys working hard in each and every room we entered. Year 7 were undertaking some tricky algebra whilst Year 5 were solving time word problems in their Maths lesson. Some challenging distance calculations and 6 figure grid references using OS maps were being undertaken by a Year 8 group. There was a genuine sense of purpose and enthusiasm from all the boys as they worked their way through the questions. 8R, meanwhile, have been very busy this week sitting their mock scholarship exams and I know they will be looking forward to getting back their results to see how they are progressing.

Today, I presented a number of flames to our boys in Pre-Prep for achieving the first stage of their specific target. They are building up a rocket because they are ‘aiming to fly through the stars to get to the moon’. The display should be spectacular as they all move towards achieving their aims. They also got to place some ‘moon rock’ in their house collector jars so we shall see how quickly we can fill those up too.

Yesterday, the boys took part in a series of E-safety workshops running throughout the day. In the evening, there was an excellent talk to parents with so many useful tips for keeping our children safe online. This is such an important topic to discuss and to be fully aware of the issues surrounding it, both for boys and parents and something that is regularly revisited within school. I hope that you will have received an email too from us with some useful websites for parents to use and a checklist for parents to help keep their child safe online.

Football matches this week saw all of our Year 5s and 6s take on Chandlings in the first games of the season. Eight competitive games were played with an even split of wins and losses with both teams competing in exactly the right spirit. There were five matches for our Year 7s and 8s against Davenies, resulting in four wins and one loss with the boys starting off the season in a very positive fashion, despite the rain and rather chilly conditions. Good luck to our Year 6s who are taking on The Dragon tomorrow.

I would again like to take this opportunity to remind parents that they should ensure that when crossing the car park with children that they stick to the hashed lines. Drivers should also please take great care in this area and ensure they are not crossing the hashed lines adjacent to the parking spaces. The safety of everyone using our car park is of paramount importance to us.

I hope you all have a good weekend planned and I look forward to catching some of you on the touchline tomorrow.

Best wishes

Craig