The Abingdonian 2019

48 The Abingdonian analysis of badgers. This project is in partnership with WildCRU, a part of Oxford University, and Tenesha Allen, who is using the project for her PhD, which goes to show the fantastic variety and complexity of projects that are on offer within the partnership. Overall, I feel the partnership has been an outstanding feature of Abingdon’s Other Half and I am looking forward to seeing what contributions I will make in the future. Freddie Nicholson, 5RLR Over a period of three months, I worked with students from the Lower Sixth of other schools in Abingdon to tutor GCSE students from across all schools. In the beginning I was concerned that we might not work well with the students from the other schools, but we fit together well as a team, and I learned much about leadership and the importance of communication. Through the partnerships programme, I also made friends that I maintain today. I felt that our teaching of students improved my confidence in communicating with the lower years as well as helping me learn more about teaching. MUN and debating provide excellent opportunities for students, including myself, to build skills. As Secretary General of Abingdon MUN I can say that MUN provides me with the opportunity to learn from and make friends with other students. It also engages younger students with students from other schools, allowing them to meet different types of people who they otherwise would not encounter. Debating has taught me organisational skills; our cross-school debating competition has meant I’m organising and coordinating 12 teams of three from the schools within our town. Finally, MUN has given me the opportunity to develop leadership skills; learning how to manage a hastily-put- together team of students who don’t know each other has been a great learning experience. Lancelot WIlson, 6DTP I came into the Abingdon Science Partnership not sure what to expect. I was put into a team with a few other people from other local schools in Abingdon, which was a challenge in itself as I had to get to know and work with people I had never met before and deliver a comprehensive set of lessons to a group of local primary school children. From the experience, I massively improved my leadership skills by having to coordinate a team to deliver well-planned lessons and was able to build upon my communication skills because I was required to interact clearly with younger children. This experience has also made me more aware of a potential career in teaching. Alexander Scott, 6RMT I first joined ASP in order to complete the volunteering section of my silver DofE. I was part of a small group of students teaching science lessons to primary school children once a fortnight. I was surprised to find that I really enjoyed being part of this partnership scheme, and have continued to be a science ambassador well beyond the completion of my DofE and have taken part in the science mentoring scheme. As part of these experiences I have had to communicate with teaching staff and technicians to prepare lessons and equipment; I have worked with students both from different year groups and different schools to plan an engaging and educational lesson; I have led and organised a group of younger students to prepare and teach lessons; and of course presented many lessons myself. From this scheme, I have learnt many lessons and developed numerous skills, including communication, management, public speaking and leadership. These have already helped me and will continue to benefit me at university and in my subsequent career. Lloyd Langley, 6TCG Having worked with the Lower School at Abingdon, I had some experience working with younger children. This, however, only involved running hands-on activities and so I was excited for the opportunity teaching maths presented me. At first it was a challenge, as both the Lower Sixth students and the students from Year 8 had never met before. As soon as everyone got to know each other, however, I found the teaching really enjoyable, especially seeing the improvement of the students from the beginning to the end of each lesson. This was made even more rewarding by clearly seeing that students found the teaching interesting and useful. As a result, the mentoring has put me into the shoes of the teacher and given me a good insight into a possible career in the future. Henry Insley, 6DRM The ASiP opened up a new role to the Lower Sixth pupils, offering them the chance to become a Peer Support Leader within the school. The training kicked off with a two day training course courtesy of Nick Luxmoore, a leading figure in the fields of school