Head’s Letters

Thursday 17 November 2022

Dear Parents

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our Fireworks last Friday. The weather was very kind and the display was terrific. Thank you too to our brilliant JPA and Annabel Gaskell for organising such an enjoyable event.

It is anti-bullying week across the country and today 5L delivered a fantastic assembly about bullying and what we can all do to stop it from happening. They presented extremely well and delivered a powerful message to the school.

Wednesday this week saw our second ever ‘Big Think’. The children all listened to Mahler’s Symphony No.1 First Movement and were then asked to respond to how it made them feel via a medium of their choice. Some wrote reflective pieces, some drew images whilst others used playdough to model how it made them feel. It was lovely to see the pupils being so reflective and creative with their thoughts and responses.

In the classroom, the children have been working hard. In Year 1 they have been creating their own versions of the story ‘The Naughty Red Bus’, whilst Reception have been exploring what happens when you mix oil and water together, with some spectacular results. I particularly enjoyed seeing Year 3 this week working on the new concept of onomatopoeia in their English lessons with the aim of including some in upcoming writing tasks.

On the rugby pitch, there have been lots of close matches this week, with our U13As and U12As producing excellent wins against Oratory Prep and Abingdon School respectively. It was an even split of wins and losses across all the other matches and as always it was great to see so many children enjoying representing APS.

Our Year 7s are looking forward to a cinema night with their Year 7 counterparts at Headington School this Friday. This is the first joint social event that we have held with them and the children are very much looking forward to it.

Good luck to our U13s playing in the APS Rugby 7s tournament tomorrow and also to our U13s who are competing at the IAPS National Football finals on Sunday in Suffolk. Today we have Matt Taylor, ex premiership footballer and coach at Tottenham football academy, coming in to run a coaching session for these pupils to help with their final preparations.

I hope you all have a good weekend ahead.

With best wishes

Craig Williams
Headmaster

Thursday 10 November 2022

Dear Parents

It has been a really busy week at school with The Arts taking centre stage for many of our older pupils. On Monday, our Year 7 and 8 pupils spent the day learning how to make a film, starring in it themselves and producing and editing them before their afternoon screenings. They learnt so much about films and thoroughly enjoyed the experience producing some very entertaining film shorts for everyone to watch.

Radley’s Prep School Orchestra Day took place on Tuesday with 20 APS children attending. They performed in a fantastic joint concert at the end of the day with more than 100 other children from local schools and not only enjoyed the experience immensely but also picked up some great tips for working together as an orchestra.

A small group of our Year 8 arts award candidates spent the day on Wednesday at Stowe School for their Festival of Art. They produced some amazing work, ably supported by sixth form pupils at Stowe. An amazing setting there helped to inspire our pupils and further drive their passion for art.

Our first cross-country meet of the term took place at St Hugh’s this week for Years 3-6 and was very successful with fantastic performances from children in all age groups. This afternoon sees the first swimming gala of the term, again across at St Hugh’s and I wish them luck.

It was a busy week of rugby matches too with all pupils in Years 5 to 8 playing against Moulsford. There were some very hard fought matches with highlights coming from our U10 C and U12 C teams who put in impressive displays to earn their victories.

Year 4 visited Oxford Gaol today to experience what a life of crime and punishment was truly like in Victorian England. I think it was an eye opening experience for them to see what conditions were like for prisoners in those times and also to see how the history of the castle had evolved over time.

We are all greatly looking forward to our fireworks evening tomorrow. The forecast seems reasonable at the moment so hopefully we will get a welcome break in the weather for it. I would like to thank the JPA and Annabel for all their work in setting it up.

Finally, good luck to the children playing rugby against Abingdon School on Saturday. It is always a very enjoyable fixture within the foundation.

With best wishes

Craig Williams
Headmaster

Thursday 3 November 2022

Dear Parents

I hope that everyone enjoyed the half term break and it has been lovely to find out from the children this week about what they got up to in the holidays. I have also enjoyed hearing about their Halloween celebrations and trick or treating excursions.

The children have settled back into their learning very well. I particularly enjoyed seeing our Year 5s starting their Victorian crime novels based on Sherlock Holmes stories and our Year 7s working on their group presentation about different metals, their properties and uses. In Pre-Prep, Reception continue to work hard on developing their phonics knowledge and starting their exciting journeys of learning to read whilst our Year 2s have been writing winter poetry, utilising similes and personification as well as producing bonfire night artwork with collected natural materials.

A real highlight this week for me was being able to listen to some of our Year 7 and 8 pupils performing Shakespearian sonnets for the first round of this competition. The standard was incredibly high and I am looking forward to hearing the finalists in a fortnight who will be performing in front of the school in assembly.

All of our Year 3 and 4 children took part in tag and touch rugby festivals today with lots of matches for all of them. They really seemed to enjoy the day and made enormous improvements to their match play over the course of the festival.

Our second Open Morning of the term takes place tomorrow and we look forward to welcoming prospective families into school. Thanks to our Year 7 children who will be acting as tour guides and sharing their experiences of what life is like at Abingdon Prep. I know they will be terrific ambassadors for us.

Next week is a busy week with our Remembrance service and our fireworks celebration on Friday. Please do order your tickets through classlist if you have not yet purchased them.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

With best wishes

Craig Williams
Headmaster

Thursday 13 October 2022

Dear Parents

It seems hard to believe that just six weeks ago we welcomed everyone back for the start of term. Time has flown by, perhaps because of how much takes place each and every week in school. I know that I am looking forward to the half term break and I am sure that the children will be as well.

I want to start my letter this week by congratulating our U13 and U11 football teams who have both qualified for the IAPS national finals in November, despite it not being our football term! Both teams performed fantastically with our U13s winning their regional heat in Surrey and the U11s coming 2nd in their qualifier at Millfield.

Rugby house matches took place for all children in Years 3-8 this week and the spirit in which they were played was brilliant. Competitive but friendly, with some very close matches and superb individual skills on show.

Reception experienced their first ever trip, going to Cogges Farm to learn all about food and the journey from field to plate. There was palpable excitement simply about going on a minibus for the first time which was just one of the many highlights of the trip. Year 5 spent today at the Black Country Museum in Dudley. It is always an eye opening experience for the children to see a true to life working Victorian village with ‘Ye olde worlde sweet shop’ and Victorian school discipline in the school house. Year 7 are off to the Roman Baths in Bath tomorrow, another of my favourite trips of all time. It is hard not to be impressed by the scale of the Roman baths and the artefacts on display there.

Class pairings have also been taking place this week with the theme of card games. It was lovely to walk through the classrooms and see our older children playing games with the younger ones. Top Trumps featured highly as did Uno (albeit strange versions that were definitely not available growing up in the 1980s!).

I hope that you all have a lovely break over half term and that the children are fully rested on their return for the next half of term.

With best wishes

Craig Williams
Headmaster

Thursday 6 October 2022

Dear Parents

It has been another lovely week at school with the children working hard both in and out of the classroom.

Reception pupils have had a fantastic week with medical issues at the forefront of their learning. We have been very fortunate to have a wonderful doctor in showing the children how to look after themselves and also how to bandage a wound properly. The teddies they all brought in for practising on were certainly well bandaged by the end of the session!

I wanted to publicly thank Natalie Hunt, Abingdon Foundation’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Coordinator, for her webinar to parents on Monday night – ‘Teaching children about consent’, and also for her ‘Consent Workshops’ on Wednesday with many of the children. It is such an important topic for our children to understand as part of our RSE curriculum. Natalie has great experience working with children of all ages about this topic and I would recommend that you take the time to watch the webinar from Monday if you were not able to attend. It has been shared as a link in the weekly mailing.

Rugby this week saw the senior pupils take on Cheltenham College in contact fixtures for the first time with our U8s, U9s, U10 and U11s all taking on Chandlings in touch. Our U12Cs performed brilliantly to continue their unbeaten season and it was great to see strong performances across all of our younger teams who are showing great improvement since the start of term.

Today Year 2 have been out visiting Combe Mill, 5S attended a science session at Abingdon School and this morning Year 8 departed on their residential to the Jurassic Coast at Swanage. I am very excited to be accompanying them on this trip and being able to teach some geography again, especially in such a stunning location.

Finally, good luck to our middle and senior section pupils competing in the regional IAPS 7-a-side football tournaments this weekend in Surrey and Somerset.

I hope you all have an enjoyable weekend.

With best wishes

Craig Williams
Headmaster

Thursday 29 September 2022

Dear Parents

I was very lucky to witness a quite amazing presentation to senior section children this week from a very talented young man, Micah Hayns, who is an ex-Abingdon pupil who now has his own art gallery in Oxford. He is 24 years old and spoke so passionately about his journey from the age of 12 to become an artist. It was an inspirational talk and it was breathtaking to see some of the art work he has produced, in both portraiture with a modern twist and also the natural world. If you get the chance to visit his new gallery in Cowley (a brand new venture after moving out from his central Oxford location), then I would absolutely seize that chance and see some of his work for yourself.

Our official grand opening of the new building last Friday was a great success. It was lovely to welcome governors, class reps, support staff and other key foundation staff alongside the children to help us celebrate the occasion and the children are really settling into their new surroundings.

This week has been a busy one for trips. Year 1 visited Hill End for some outdoor adventure, teamwork and forest school activities. They learned how to start fires with flints and cooked smores over the fire too. They came back full of stories of their trip away. Our Year 8s went to the Natural History Museum in Oxford for a combined art and science trip. The hissing cockroaches were a real hit! Tomorrow sees our Year 5s and 7s attending a talk at Abingdon School from the weather forecaster and presenter, Liam Dutton from Channel 4 nightly news. It ties in very well with their topics of study and is a great way to make the topic and their learning even more memorable.

Rugby this week sees our Year 3s play their first ever match today and the Year 4s also kick off their season with a match against Christ Church. Our Year 7s and 8s took on Abingdon School and performed admirably coming away with honours even – 2 wins and 2 losses.

This weekend sees our first art workshop of the year take place, where some of our senior section children will be designing and screen printing a skateboard deck. I know there is great excitement from those attending and I cannot wait to see the finished products, although my skateboarding skills, or complete lack of them, will not be on show!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

With best wishes

Craig Williams
Headmaster

Thursday 22 September 2022

Dear Parents

It was fascinating to hear from many of the children this week about how they spent Monday watching the Queen’s funeral. The pomp and ceremony of the occasion really seems to have piqued the children’s interest and generated a lot of conversation amongst them at break times.

In the classroom this week, I have enjoyed watching the children in a range of lessons. In Science, Year 7 were studying forces, producing graphs from the data collected whilst our Year 6 pupils were outside in the new auditorium area giving their prepared introductory speeches of welcome to the author, Beverley Naidoo, whose work they have been studying. English, drama and public speaking all rolled into one!

I wanted to thank our Year 7s for acting as guides at our Open Morning on Wednesday this week. They were great ambassadors for the school and enjoyed the chance to tell our visitors about life at Abingdon Prep. We are very much looking forward to our next open morning in November.

Our cross country season got underway this week with three teams of U12 / U13s competing in the Abingdon School relays. Our pupils performed admirably with our A team winning the competition, whilst our C team came 5th and B team 6th. It was a great start to the season and the children enjoyed getting back into competitive races.

Rugby matches saw all the pupils in Year 5 and 6 competing against Beachborough and honours were pretty much even across the 7 matches. Highlights came from the U10 Cs who produced a fantastic performance to come away with a hard fought win, and our U11 As performed very well too in their convincing win. All those involved in the matches represented the school beautifully.

I am looking forward to welcoming our governors and class reps into school tomorrow afternoon for the official opening of our new facilities.The children will also be involved and help us to celebrate these wonderful additions to Abingdon Prep.

Next week sees a number of year groups undertaking their first trips of the year to a variety of venues. Educational visits are such a great way to support learning with real life experiences and I know the children will thoroughly enjoy their outings.

I hope you all enjoy a good weekend.

With best wishes

Craig Williams
Headmaster

Thursday 15 September 2022

Dear Parents

It was great to see so many of you at our start of term welcome drinks last Friday. I hope that those of you who were able to attend enjoyed seeing all of our new facilities and I know that the children have been greatly enjoying being taught in these new rooms. It has also been lovely to see children in the new library choosing books and making the most of the new work space there too.

Our first rugby matches of the term took place yesterday against Pinewood, but having not been able to undertake any contact practice due to hard ground so far, we stuck to touch fixtures. There were numerous exciting matches with close finishes but our U11Cs, U12Cs and U13B/Cs were our stand out performers with fantastic wins. It was lovely to be able to involve every pupil in Year 5, 6 and 7 in these matches.

Year 4 are away on their first ever residential trip today, walking along the Ridgeway and staying overnight at a youth hostel. They will be focusing on geography and science as they walk the 13 mile section over two days, as well as having fun, working as a team and creating great memories.

It was lovely to see our Year 1 and Year 2s working with the ‘You Can’ books and putting together things that they are hoping to achieve by the end of the year. It will be great to open the letters they are writing to themselves now at the end of the summer term to see if they have achieved them all. Our new Reception children seem very well settled into their new school routines. The apple and blackberry crumble they were making today looked delicious. I am rather hoping that I might even get to share my son’s baking when he brings it home!

Next week sees our individual and class photos take place as well as our first Open Morning of the year on Wednesday. Our Year 7s will act as guides for prospective parents and I know that they are looking forward to this and will do a fantastic job.

We take the opportunity this bank holiday weekend to mourn, remember and celebrate the incredible life of service of Queen Elizabeth. I look forward to welcoming everyone back to school on Tuesday.

With best wishes

Craig Williams
Headmaster

Friday 9 September 2022

Dear Parents

This morning, I spoke to the children about the very sad death of Queen Elizabeth, a quite remarkable monarch and beacon of light to both Great Britain and so many other countries and people around the world. She devoted herself to a life of service and we will remember her for all that she has done and accomplished. We will, of course, keep you updated with any changes to school routines that may occur in the coming days in line with the period of mourning.

It has been lovely to welcome back the children into school this week, with so many new and old faces returning. I have loved popping into lessons to see all the pupils getting back into their learning and it has been terrific to see their focus and attention on the task in hand. It has been a really productive week both in and out of the classroom.

I am looking forward to welcoming many of you into school for our gathering tonight. I am very excited to be able to give everyone the opportunity to look around our new facilities which the children have been enjoying all week.

I am delighted to share with you that I have appointed Eliott Birbeck as our new Director of Sport to start in January. Eliott is currently a PE teacher and Head of cross country at Abingdon School. Eliott has a fantastic sporting background across a wide range of sports and is incredibly excited to be joining APS. He will be coming over regularly in the next few months to meet the children and I am sure he will meet many of you on the touchline as well.

Rugby matches begin for children in Years 5-8 next week, although I do not think that we will be in a position to play contact rugby just yet and we will keep you updated as to any decision regarding Wednesday’s matches.

Finally, as of next week, our weekly mailing will be sent through to you on Thursday afternoon rather than Friday.

I look forward to seeing many of you tonight.

Best wishes

Craig

Friday 2 September 2022

Dear Parents

I hope you have all enjoyed the final week of the holidays. Today, we have welcomed back to school all of our teachers and support staff for the first of our two INSET days. It has been great to catch up with everyone and be able to get ourselves ready to welcome back all of the children on Tuesday.

The school is looking terrific with all the new classrooms set up and I know that the children will be impressed with the new learning environments.

Our form teachers are looking forward to speaking with you on zoom this evening to share key information about the year ahead and school routines which may be new for many of the children. You should also have received earlier, the zoom addresses to dial into the meetings.

On Wednesday and Thursday it was lovely to welcome 50 boys to our pre-season rugby training sessions. It was particularly great to see so many new faces attending and for some, experiencing their first taste of rugby. We had a Gloucester Rugby coach attend both days who delivered sessions and also helped upskill some of our teaching staff too with new drills and exciting game play practices.

Please may I take this opportunity to again encourage you to read the weekly mailing as there is important information included. This week specifically, there is detailed information about drop off and pick up information as well as the start of other half activities.

We are really looking forward to welcoming all the children back to school on Tuesday morning and cannot wait to get started. I hope to catch up with many of you in the car park during the week or if not, at our drinks event on Friday 9 September at 6.45pm.

In the meantime, have a lovely weekend.

With best wishes

Craig Williams
Headmaster