The Abingdonian 2019

46 The Abingdonian Summer 2019 Abingdon School in Partnership The aim of Abingdon School in Partnership (ASiP) is to build relationships with the local community, and in particular our partner schools, to both benefit and challenge all staff and students. The School has a long history of working with partner schools on a range of projects, from teaching Classics in senior schools to primary school sports days. The opening of the School’s Science Centre and the subsequent Abingdon Science Partnership initiative has broadened our association to around 30 schools. Fitzharrys School and Abingdon have worked together for four years. Joint activities include action-based research for staff and wide-ranging student collaboration including joint drama performances, swimming coaching, A level geography teaching and more recently sixth formers planning, resourcing and delivering the teaching of certain curriculum areas within maths and science. As a forward-thinking, outward-looking school, Abingdon is keen to forge further links with schools, both primary and secondary, within the town and surrounding area. Over the course of this year ASiP events have seen almost 7,000 student experiences for our partner schools, involving over 280 Abingdon students and almost 30 staff. Teaching staff have volunteered over 1,000 hours of their time, while support staff have given more than 1,500 hours of theirs. The highlights of ASiP’s recent activities have included: - Annually, several hundred pupils from around eight local primary schools obtaining the British Science Association CREST Star and Superstar award - The co-ordination of groups from five schools to work with particle physicists from University of Oxford, University of Birmingham and CERN to build ATLAScraft, a simulation of the ATLAS detector in Minecraft - Receiving a Royal Society Partnership Grant to work in partnership with University of Oxford’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit and seven local schools on a project to observe the olfactory response of the European Badger - Regular teacher CPD events in association with Oxfordshire Science Learning Partnership, the Ogden Trust, Practical Action and the Institute of Physics as a Lead School for the Stimulating Physics Network - Sixth form academic mentoring involving the teaching of maths, English and science to KS3 students from across the town - Model United Nations conference involving eight schools and more than 120 students - Cross-town swimming partnership - Sixth form peer support training - Abingdon Film Academy - Extensive primary school programme involving more than 500 primary school students in events