Head’s Letters

Thursday 23 November 2023

Dear Parents

Another week has flown by at school and the children have been as busy as ever.

Year 5 are currently away on a PGL residential, undertaking a variety of activities to challenge themselves and work together as a team. These include zip wiring, climbing, and tunnel networks to name but a few. I know they are having a fantastic time and we look forward to seeing them return safely back to school on Friday afternoon.

Year 6 rehearsals for their pantomime on Tuesday evening next week are going well and I am looking forward to seeing the performance, Abingdon Prep’s first pantomime for many years. The costumes will certainly add a great deal to the show!

The art room has been a hive of activity this week with the pottery wheel being very well used by some of our senior children. I have been hugely impressed with their skills creating bowls or similar vessels. It is lovely to see them learning new skills in the creative arts.

In Pre-Prep, nativity rehearsals are coming together and the smell of Christmas filled the corridor as Reception baked. Year 1 pupils have been busy learning about fractions and have been using a green screen to magic them on to a snow capped mountain.

Our assembly theme on Monday was ‘celebrating achievements of individuals with a disability’. Elliot and his team of four Year 6 interviewers had recorded a fascinating interview with Blaine Hunt, a current World Champion in C5 track cycling, who spoke about his disability and how he got into track cycling and then became both a world champion and world record holder. It was fascinating to hear his take on disability and his motivation to be the best he can be in his chosen sport of cycling (he had previously skied for GB as well!).

Rugby matches this week saw our U11s take on Magdalen College and our A team were hugely impressive with a strong victory and 12 tries being scored. Our U13s took on Beachborough and performed well, losing a tight game. Our U12s are looking forward to combining with Abingdon School U12s on Saturday morning to take on RGS Guildford in our first joint foundation fixture for the sport. The U9s performed superbly at The Dragon Festival, returning unbeaten with 2 draws and a victory.

I hope everyone has been able to visit the book fair this week. I know the children have been avidly choosing books from a huge selection and it has been particularly enjoyable to hear them recommending titles to each other that they think they will enjoy. In our household, we have added a rather eclectic mix of books about Dragons, Sabre-Tooth tigers and Supertato!

I hope the parent Christmas wreath making workshops for those attending go well and that you all enjoy a good weekend.

With best wishes

Craig Williams
Head

Thursday 16 November 2023

Dear Parents

I hope that everyone enjoyed the fireworks evening last Friday. We were very lucky with the weather and it was great to see the children running around having so much fun. Huge thanks to all those who kindly returned on Saturday morning to help clear the fields of litter and fireworks debris.

Schools across the country have been focusing on anti-bullying this week and in assemblies and form times we have spoken about ‘making a noise’ and ‘speaking out’ if it happens to you or if you see it happening to someone else. We work hard on the concept of being an ‘upstander’ not a ‘bystander’ at APS and it has been incredibly reassuring to hear from the children their thoughts on how important it is to support friends and call it out when they see it.

It was good to see so many children wearing blue on Tuesday, helping to raise awareness of diabetes. Supporting a wide range of charities in school is a great way to learn more about different issues that affect so many people locally, nationally and internationally.

In the classroom this week I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Year 8 running an experiment on the amount of photosynthesis taking place from pondweed in their biochemistry unit. They had to alter the proximity of a light and heat source to see what effect that had on the amount of oxygen released by the plant. Year 5 were also fully engaged in their living history task, putting themselves into the minds of Victorians, debating whether child labour should be abolished or not.

Congratulations to our U13 footballers who performed terrifically well at the National Finals on Wednesday, losing out on a place in the quarter finals by just a single goal. They were the only team who did not lose to the eventual winners and they should be very proud of their efforts and the standard of football they played.

On the rugby pitch this week, our U11s produced a clean sweep of wins and our U10s performed very well at the Radley tournament. Our U8 and U9s also showed enormous improvement with an even split of wins and losses in their matches.

Our swimming team performed admirably last week at the St Hugh’s Gala and even more strongly at The Dragon Gala on Monday. All their hard work in swimming lessons and in Other Half activities is certainly paying off.

Good luck to our U13 rugby team who are competing in the APS 7s rugby tournament tomorrow and we are looking forward to the Book Fair which starts on Tuesday next week.

With best wishes

Craig Williams
Head

Thursday 9 November 2023

Dear Parents

I hope you have all had an enjoyable week. Many of our pupils have been out on exciting trips and activities this week which I know they have enjoyed enormously.

Our Year 5s experienced life in Victoian times first hand on Wednesday this week. They travelled to the Black Country Museum, a working life Victorian era open air exhibit. They spent time in a Victorian classroom with a rather forceful Victorian teacher, explored mines and shops, including a genuine confectionery shop where a range of old school sweets were available for purchase. It was great to hear that members of the public commented on how polite our children were and how focused they were on their learning whilst there.

14 pupils spent Tuesday at Radley College, taking part in their Prep School Orchestra day. The children had a fantastic time and joined over 100 other like minded pupils in performing in a concert at the end of the day. Five other Year 8s spent Wednesday at Stowe for their Arts Day and it was lovely to hear about their experience and art work that they produced whilst there, working alongside current Stowe art scholars.

On Monday, Year 4 visited Oxford Castle to bring their study of crime and punishment through the ages alive. It was a great day out with tours of the castle, visits to prison cells, dressing up and workshops broadening the children’s knowledge and understanding significantly. It was lovely to hear them still talking about it so excitedly days after the trip.

On the rugby pitch, all our children from Year 6 to 8 represented APS against Moulsford. There were some terrific matches with perhaps the highlight being the U13 touch team coming away with a remarkable 10-10 draw in a fantastic touch rugby game.

Huge congratulations and indeed commiseration to our Under 11 football team who missed out on qualifying for the national finals by conceding a goal with just 20 seconds of their final match. Their attitude and teamwork were terrific throughout the tournament and they can be proud of their performances.

We have had two very engaging assemblies about Remembrance this week, with our Year 8s sharing war poetry with the rest of the school and reflecting on those who lost their lives in previous conflicts. In Monday’s assembly, the children read out the names of the 73 Old Abingdonians who lost their lives in World War 1. We are looking forward to coming together as a whole school community tomorrow for our two minute silence for our Remembrance service. One of our Year 7 pupils will be playing the trumpet for The Last Post.

On Monday we also had a parent workshop on raising happy children delivered so brilliantly by one of our parents, who has gained a huge amount of experience in this area in her role as a GP and doctor working with children.

Good luck to our swimmers taking part in the St Hugh’s Gala tonight, our cross country runners in the regional finals which they qualified for at the start of term, and our U12 and U13 rugby teams taking on Abingdon School on Saturday morning.

I have my fingers crossed for some good weather tomorrow evening for our Fireworks event. I very much look forward to seeing many of you there. Huge thanks to our JPA team for organising this and also to those of you who have kindly volunteered to come back to help with the clean up early on Saturday morning.

Please do sign up for our coffee morning on Tuesday next week. This is a great opportunity for you to speak with Mr Windsor and a number of other senior school staff who will be happy to answer any questions you might have about life at Abingdon School.

With best wishes

Craig Williams
Head

Thursday 2 November 2023

Dear Parents

I hope that you all enjoyed a relaxing half term whether you stayed close to home or ventured further afield. It has been a rather wet and windy return to school this week but it has been lovely to hear from the children what they got up to over the break.

In school, we have settled quickly back into the busy schedule of school life.

Year 5 spent a very enjoyable and interesting afternoon across at Abingdon School undertaking science experiments on Tuesday. The hands-on nature of the subject when running experiments really is the perfect way to inspire and generate a passion for such a great subject which so often lasts a lifetime.

Reception had a fantastic visit from a local vet on Wednesday morning which they thoroughly enjoyed. They learnt all about taking care of animals and they even got to practise on a rather large stuffed dog toy to bring it all to life.

Unfortunately, storm Ciarán meant that we had to cancel the Year 3 and 4 rugby tournament today with the high winds and heavy rain preventing the fixtures, but on Wednesday we put out 8 teams across our Year 5 to 8s against Christ Church Cathedral School. After a two week hiatus, it was good to see the children working well as a team and coming away with a fairly even set of wins and losses.

We are looking forward to welcoming prospective parents to our Open Morning on Friday and I hope that our Year 7 tour guides enjoy taking them around our school and answering all manner of questions. Friday after school is another of our very popular platform concerts and it is great to have some new faces putting their names down to perform this time around.

I hope you have a good weekend when it arrives and enjoy any Guy Fawkes celebrations that you might be attending. On that note, if you have not yet purchased your Firestorm tickets for Friday 10 November, please do so. It is always a spectacular fireworks show and the variety of food vendors are well worth a visit for dinner.

With best wishes

Craig Williams
Head

Thursday 12 October 2023

Dear Parents

It is hard to believe that we will reach half term tomorrow and I am sure that the break will be appreciated by the children. It has been a terrifically busy first half of term and it has been lovely to see the children throwing themselves completely into school life.

This week, different year groups have been out on exciting trips, with Reception visiting Fairytale Farm (their first school trip ever), Year 8 going to the Oxford Natural History Museum for a Science and Art curriculum trip and Year 7 are off to the Roman Baths in Bath tomorrow. I am fortunate to be accompanying them and very much looking forward to learning more about Roman Bath.

Our House charities have now been voted for and I am delighted to announce that this year Dragon will be supporting Sobell House (a local palliative care charity), Griffin will be supporting Heg Community Larder (a local charity working to transform the lives of young people), Phoenix will be supporting Oxford Animal Sanctuary and Unicorn are supporting George’s Rockstars (a musical therapy charity for children in hospital). These are all charities suggested by children in their respective houses and we look forward to helping them over the course of the year.

Class pairings took place this morning and the activity was paired reading. It is one of my favourite class pairing activities as it is so lovely to see the younger children reading to the older ones and sharing their excitement about a book or a story. I hope that the children will have a good book close to hand over half term.

A real academic highlight took place on Monday with all the Year 4-8 pupils taking part in a Maths Escape Room challenge. They were fully engaged in problem solving and unlocking padlocks when, as a group, they had solved a specific problem which could then lead them onto the next task. Their focus was brilliant throughout and it was great to see Maths being learnt and applied in such a fun way.

Lots more matches took place this week with our U8s and U9s performing well in their rugby matches on Tuesday whilst we had a multi-sport set of fixtures on Wednesday with our first ever squash and table tennis matches taking place against Cothill. We also added in some rugby and football matches too for good measure. Twenty four of our U8-U11 pupils are taking part in a cross country event on Thursday afternoon too so it really has been a broad offering of sports for the children this week.

Pre-Prep have their first performance of the term taking place tomorrow, celebrating the Harvest Festival. We look forward to welcoming families in to see all of their pumpkin creations and of course, hear them sing some seasonal songs. It will be a lovely way to finish the first half of term.

I hope you all enjoy a lovely half term break.

With best wishes

Craig Williams
Head

Thursday 5 October 2023

Dear Parents

It has been a week for trips this week with Year 8 studying sand dune succession and beach profiles down in Dorset, Year 2 visiting Combe Mill, and Year 1 spending the day at Hill End. Educational trips help support and stretch the children’s learning so much and I know that they all really enjoyed taking their learning out of the classroom this week.

Our Parents Association are busily working on events for the children this term, with Firestorm and Gifts for Grown Ups high up on their lists, alongside regular opening times for the Second Hand Uniform Shop (SHUS). I wanted to formally thank Sally Povolotsky for her amazing efforts as chair of the JPA for the past 3 years, and announce that Sarah Dempsey has now taken on the mantle of chair. It was brilliant to have all the class reps in our meeting last week and I know that they will be in touch asking for support and volunteers for future events. As a school we are immensely grateful to the class reps and JPA committee for all that they do to support us. I have included a link to key information about the JPA which I know Sarah and her team would love you to read to find out a bit more about their aims and events that they run for the children.

Huge congratulations to our U13 footballers who won the regional finals last week and will be competing in the national finals later this term for the second year in succession. They played brilliantly as a team, winning all 8 matches, scoring 18 goals and conceding only 2. Perhaps the highlight though was the comment from another coach about how humble our children were when winning. Our cross country team also won their Oxfordshire heat in the English Schools Athletics and have qualified for the regional finals as well.

On the rugby pitch this week there was a block fixture with Cheltenham College with every child in Year 5-8 representing Abingdon Prep. Our U8s and U9s were also all involved in matches against Chandlings this week. It is great for all children to be involved in these matches. Good luck to our U8s who have their first ever Saturday tournament this weekend too.

It was good to have lots of parents join us for our webinar on consent on Monday night, leading into age appropriate workshops for the children on the subject led by Natalie Hunt, a specialist in this field, on Wednesday and Thursday. I was lucky to sit in on the Year 7 and 8 workshop and it was good to hear the children asking pertinent questions and furthering their understanding of the issues surrounding consent.

This morning, our houses all met to hear presentations from some children about which charity they wanted to support this year. It was lovely to hear so many personal reasons for why the charities had been recommended and we look forward to supporting them in the coming months.

We round off the week tomorrow with our second platform concert of the term, which again has a full list of participants, and our Year 7s have a joint quiz and pizza evening with Headington. This event was greatly enjoyed by everyone last year and it is lovely to be giving the children the opportunity to mix with pupils from Headington once again.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend ahead.

With best wishes

Craig Williams
Headmaster

Thursday 28 September 2023

Dear Parents

I hope that you have all had a good week. The children continue to be busy in school both in and out of the classroom.

Our Year 7s were terrific guides on our Open Morning last Friday and received fantastic feedback from our visitors. Our children really are the best way of showcasing our school.

Our eco committee recently met with our Estates Director in order to discuss some future initiatives which they were keen to investigate and also to hear about future plans for improving the sustainability credentials of our school. It was great for them to hear from someone with enormous experience in this industry and put forward their thoughts around electric minibus fleets, solar panels, compost heaps and further measures to reduce energy consumption in school. It was also fascinating to hear about how the air source heat pump worked in our new build and whether this sort of heating could be utilised elsewhere to replace gas and oil heating systems in the future. I am always so encouraged when the children are so well informed and show true desire to make a tangible difference to our approach to sustainability as a school.

Year 3 delivered a terrific assembly this morning about inspirational older people. It was heartwarming to hear of their personal inspirational influences, mainly from grandparents, who clearly play such a huge part in their lives, setting a wonderful example to everyone.

I was lucky enough to see Year 4 this morning in an English lesson having to decide what certain Tudor objects were used for by looking at images of them. The topic is crime and punishment and they have moved from Roman times, through Medieval times and are now looking at Tudor times. It was great to hear them guessing how the objects were used and then writing about their real purpose. There was a ducking stool, a rack, stocks and even barrels which people had to wear if they had been caught drinking too much. Perhaps the harshest, though, was a leather hood which had to be worn for gossiping!

On the rugby pitch this week, there were some terrific results with the U9s, U10s, U11s and U13s all performing strongly and scoring numerous tries. It was lovely to see our U12s and U13s playing against their Abingdon School counterparts as well.

Good luck to our cross country team competing in the English Schools regional championships this afternoon at their first event of the year and also to our U13A football team, who on Saturday are competing in the regional qualifiers hoping to make the nationals finals for the second year running. Our Year 8s will all be packing over the weekend for their 2 day geography field trip to Swanage to explore the Jurassic Coast which departs on Monday. I know they will have a fantastic trip and experience some incredible coastal scenery.

I hope you all have a good weekend and I may see some of you if you are attending the Abingdon School Open Morning on Saturday.

With best wishes

Craig Williams
Headmaster

Thursday 21 September 2023

Dear Parents

What a difference a week makes! The wonderful Indian Summer seems to have well and truly morphed into a full autumnal spectrum of heavy rain showers and wind.

I wanted to thank all those who kindly gave up some of their Friday evening last week to support our cricket match against the Old Abingdonians. I am pleased to report that it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening of cricket with the APS team coming out victorious on the final ball of the match.

Friday morning is our first Open Morning of the year and we are very much looking forward to welcoming new families to APS. I know our Year 7s will be great tour guides and showcase our school as they take on this mantle for the year.

This week, our Reception class has been working on recognising repeating patterns in Maths and linked this to their previous ‘Elmer’ focus. They have also begun their phonics program with Freddie the Frog and today, they have gathered onions grown in the pre-prep garden to begin their baking journey. It is lovely that they have all settled into life at school so quickly.

In French lessons this week, Years 3, 4 and 5 have been focusing on conversations and it has been great to hear them speaking with increased confidence and developing their French accents as they ask each other ‘How are you?’, ‘How old are you?’ and ‘When is your birthday?’. Do try this at home with them!

Performing Arts takes centre stage on Friday with our first platform concert after school and it is lovely to see so many have signed up, some of whom are performing for the first time. Our Reception to Year 3 classes all have exciting Drama workshops taking place tomorrow where they will be working with an external theatre company on the theme of ‘Around the World’. An actor will appear as Phileas Fogg and the children will be fully immersed in drama, dance and singing. I can wait to hear all about it and will definitely be popping in to see how they are getting on.

This week has seen our U8s play their first ever competitive fixtures against another school. I know they were all very excited this afternoon as they made their way out onto the pitches, alongside the U9s. Our older teams all put in excellent effort in their festivals on Wednesday. They may not have won too many fixtures, but their teamwork and positive approach in torrential rain and strong wind was a credit to them.

Please look out for the proofs that should come through shortly from the individual and class photos which were taken at the start of the week.

I hope you all have a good weekend when it arrives.

With best wishes

Craig Williams
Headmaster

Thursday 14 September 2023

Dear Parents

It was lovely to see so many of you at our welcome drinks gathering last Friday. I hope you were all able to catch up with your children’s teachers and other parents in your year group as well.

This morning, our Year 4s are off on the first trip of the year. They are walking a long section of the historic Ridgeway. Whilst there, they will be looking at the geography and the science of the area. The cooler weather will be ideal for them as they trek along the ridge.

In the classroom this week, I have been hugely impressed with the work that the children have been producing. 8R have been working on ‘Found Poetry’ and the poems that they have written utilising ‘The Rain Horse’ by Ted Hughes were a pleasure to read. They also then had to justify their choice of language. The other Year 8 classes are currently analysing ‘For the Fallen’ by Laurence Binyon, to explore poetry from the start of the First World War. They will then move on to looking at how poetry progressed throughout the duration of the war.

In English, Year 7 has been exploring the context of the oldest poem in the English language, ‘Beowulf’, interpreting and analysing the poem, before writing their own pieces utilising the style of the Anglo-Saxon language.

Year 5 has been really busy in the classroom this week too. They have been trying to identify Victorian artefacts in history, learning all the different American states in geography and in science they have been designing their own experiment to try to further their understanding of insoluble and soluble substances, creating their own hypotheses before undertaking the experiment.

In Year 2, they have started their first long write of the term. They are putting together formal invitations to Elmer the Elephant’s gathering, planning spectacular events to bring different people together and celebrate diversity and difference. It has been lovely to see them so enthused about putting their creative writing skills to the test.

Wednesday saw the first of the season’s rugby matches take place against Pinewood. All the children in Years 5 to 8 were involved and it was great to see so many of them out on the pitches enjoying representing Abingdon Prep and playing some impressive rugby at times against strong opposition. Our U10s showed great promise with 2 wins from their 3 games. Our U13As played in a tournament at The Dragon and improved enormously over the course of their four games, despite falling just short in terms of results. I know that the sports department is looking forward to speaking with many of you about sport at Abingdon Prep at the webinar this evening.

Tomorrow sees the first event of our 25th Anniversary celebrations for the joining of Josca’s Prep with Abingdon School to become the Abingdon Foundation. The children will all be involved and hear from our Chair of Governors, Professor Mike Stevens. Afterwards, for anyone who would like to watch, my APS Head’s XI take on an Old Abingdonian XI on the cricket pitch at 4.45pm.

I hope that you will all enjoy the weekend when it arrives.

With best wishes

Craig Williams
Headmaster

Thursday 7 September 2023

Dear Parents

It has been an extremely enjoyable first few days of term and it has been lovely to welcome so many new children and families into the Abingdon Prep community. The warm weather has been great for break times and the children have enjoyed forging new friendships as they spend time playing together.

Today, Mr Windsor and I walked around school and we were both delighted to see the children so focused on their learning in class. Our new Reception pupils were having a fantastic time on the trike track, setting up roadblocks with others navigating their trikes around them successfully. Pre-Prep have all been reading the book ‘Elmer’ with a focus on ‘All About Me’. It was great to see Year 2 creating pictures of themselves with both internal and external features being drawn and labelled. Our Year 5 classes were writing a synopsis of the first chapter of their book, ‘Holes’ and then making predictions about what might happen in the next chapter, basing them on just a few key words that feature in it. Year 6 were focusing on safety in the Science Lab and thinking about the dangers that different types of experiment and equipment could pose. It is always heartening to see how quickly the pupils have settled back into a routine and how keen they are to produce excellent work.

Despite the heat, the pupils have enjoyed starting the rugby season and there is much excitement as they look forward to their matches against other schools next week.

In assemblies this week, we have been talking about three key parts of school life that we want the children to really put at the heart of their daily lives – Work Hard, Get Involved and Be Kind. I know that if they focus on these key areas, they will have a great time and make enormous progress and thoroughly enjoy doing so.

I wanted to take this opportunity to remind you of the Head’s XI vs Old Abingdonians cricket match next Friday after school. This is taking place to help celebrate the 25th anniversary of Abingdon Prep and Abingdon School becoming one foundation. You are all very welcome to watch and bring a picnic as many of the teachers at APS will be hoping to demonstrate their prowess with bat or ball in hand!

We are very much looking forward to seeing many of you at our drinks reception tomorrow evening. Hopefully it will be a good opportunity to meet many of your child’s teachers and hear all about how the first week of term has gone for them.

With best wishes

Craig Williams
Headmaster