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8
January 2017
An Act of Remembrance
Abingdon and St
Helen’s celebrate
The 15th European Day of Languages
was marked by the MFL department
with a talk for middle school pupils
and a joint MFL Society dinner for sixth
formers from Abingdon and St Helen’s.
On both occasions, pupils enjoyed a
presentation from Dr Helen Abbott,
Professor of Modern Languages at
Birmingham University and a specialist
in nineteenth-century French poetry
and music.
Senior
Mathematicians
Success
Our senior mathematicians came a very
credible third out of 18 teams at the annual
regional final of the Senior Team Maths
Challenge held at Wheatley Park at the
beginning of November.
In the Princeton University Maths
Competition the Abingdon team did
exceptionally well, coming 6th out of all
postal entries, and produced an intriguing
and very professional set of solutions.
Amongst the top ten were schools from
Romania, USA, Croatia, China, Hong
Kong, Indonesia and Australia.
Abingdon
News
The School took time to pause and reflect collectively on Friday 11 November, when
we remembered the sacrifice made by our former pupils and teachers in conflict. 2016
marks of course the centenary of the Battle of the Somme, a battle which, in many ways
encapsulates the suffering and loss in the Great War. In his address on Remembrance
Day, the Chaplain reflected on our former pupils who died on the Somme. The CCF
impressed with their turnout and drill and then represented us with distinction in the
Abingdon Town parade on Remembrance Sunday.
Two sixth form teams are taking part in the BlottMatthews 2016/17 A2A (Airport to
Airport) Challenge for Year 12 students, with a prize fund of £5000. Each team consists
of students who hope to study engineering or a related discipline at university. The
Challenge is to design a transport link between London airports with a maximum transfer
time of 20 minutes between any two ‘airports’, for example Stansted to Heathrow. As
well as selecting and explaining the technology to be used, teams must choose routes,
address the requirements of the principal civil works necessary and provide basic costs
and a development schedule.
Lower sixth pupils Ben Wilson and Thomas Shaw visited the Institution of Civil
Engineering in London to conduct research to help with the project. They attended a
lecture given by two of the key project managers for the London Crossrail project and
saw the largest LEGO bridge in the world! Winners will be announced in April 2017.
Airport to
Airport
Challenge