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Abingdon news

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Tilsley Park

In a move that will guarantee the

future of Tilsley Park as a sports facility

for both the School and the local

community, Abingdon School has taken

a 125-year lease on the site and in

co-operation with the Vale of the White

Horse District Council will assume

responsibility for its management and

development.

The School has been making use of

Tilsley Park’s top-class, purpose-built

facilities for the past 16 years and the

move will ensure that it can continue to

do so for years to come. After the site

changes hands next year, and subject

to planning permission, Abingdon

School will begin a development project

to extend the facility, building a new full-

size 3G rubber crumb pitch for football

and rugby, as well as new pitches for

five-a-side football and further provision

for tennis. The extra tennis courts will

more than make up for the two tennis

courts that will be lost when the Science

Centre is built.

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Someone Has to Take the Helm …

… and sometimes that someone has to be you.

This quote from Anouilh’s

Antigone

, which he remembered from his schooldays, was

Martin Edward’s (OA 1985) main message to leavers in the memorable speech he

gave at Prize Giving on 26 June. In a life dedicated to charitable fund raising, he has

raised millions of pounds for many good causes including famine relief in Ethiopia

and Somalia. However, for the past ten years he has been working for

Julia’s House

,

a Dorset charity dedicated to children with life-limiting conditions, of which he is the

Chief Executive.

Whilst urging the boys to take advantage of their education, something that he

appreciates even though he says that his own time at the School was absolutely

terrible, Martin Edwards had five pieces of advice that he wanted boys to carry with

them through their lives: don’t mix lager and red wine; never overdo the aftershave;

appreciate your parents as parenting is one of the most demanding jobs around;

do the job you love since you will be much better at it than if you do the job people

expect you to do and, most importantly, life can be cruel and unfair but the true test

of life is whether having been knocked down you can get back up again and keep

moving forward.

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Abingdonians at University

Recent research has revealed the following

interesting information. Over the past ten

years Abingdonians’ top five university

destinations have been: Bristol, University

College London, Oxford, Durham and

Birmingham. The top five subjects read

have been: engineering, geography,

economics, history and business. Forty

per cent of leavers have read a STEM

subject – science, technology, engineering,

maths – which is an impressive percentage

and one that has given impetus to the

School’s plans for a new Science Centre

so that it can further encourage the study

of these important subjects.

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