AN47

Abingdon Development Mercers’ Lunch On Wednesday 28 February Michael Windsor spoke to supporters of the School at Mercers’ Hall in the City of London. Abingdon has been affiliated with the livery company since its re-endowment by Mercer John Roysse in 1563, and in recent years has benefitted from their generous support of projects such as Mercers’ Court and the Yang Science Centre. Those who braved the snow and blizzards to reach Mercers’ Hall heard the Headmaster share his vision for the Foundation, in which he reminded everyone that even successful organisations need to constantly evolve and improve, and that we are a School that looks “both up and out”. Our growing partnerships work and increased focus on widening access to Abingdon School through pupil bursaries is testament to this. Foundation Dinner On Friday 9 March around 130 governors, benefactors, staff and pupils joined together to celebrate ‘A Spirit of Adventure’ at the School. Guests heard from both Headmasters of the Abingdon Foundation, Michael Windsor and Craig Williams, who reflected on the pupils’ myriad achievements over the past year, as well as from the Chairman of Governors, Mike Stevens. Special thanks also go to sixth form students Jack Johnson, Reuben Havelock and Joseph O’Shea, who excellently expressed how their respective experiences of CCF, drama and the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award have helped to ignite their own adventurous spirits whilst at the School. Annual Fund 2018 – Spring Update Thanks to the generous support of ASPA and the SUS and donations from the Abingdon community, we have already fully funded two of this year’s Annual Fund projects: the Merlyn spin bowling machine and Virtual Reality ‘open casket’ computer. The computer, once cleverly assembled by pupils and the Design Technology and Computing teams, will be displayed in the Yang Science Centre and integrated with educational Virtual Reality software for the whole School to use. As a lunchtime and Other Half activity pupils will be able to try their hand at virtual painting, virtual dissection and even walk about the world in street view, all whilst their peers look on via an accompanying plasma screen. This project will open pupils’ minds to the power and possibilities of technology, and greatly enhance cross-curricular learning across all ages. We hope that members of the Abingdon community will help us to continue this success by supporting our other Annual Fund projects, which cover the sciences, arts and sport and which stretch and challenge our pupils whilst promoting wellbeing. Please visit www.abingdon.org.uk/annual_fund to find out more about these projects and to see our progress to date. GDPR In May 2018 the laws about privacy are changing (GDPR), and Abingdon will need to demonstrate that we have your permission to stay in touch with you about news and events happening at School. So far we have asked all of our OAs to confirm their communications preferences and the response has been fantastic, with 97% of OA respondents indicating that they would like to continue receiving emails from the School. If you are an OA and are yet to reply to the email we sent to you on 22 February, we urge you to respond to this directly or get in touch with us so that we can help. Please contact Gary Baiden or Alexa Broad in the OA Club office on [email protected] or call +44 (0)1235 849117. Merlyn Spin Bowling Machine Virtual Reality